And Darkness Fell
by Molly 1new
Summary: *New chapter- please R&R* Sarah has moved past childish fantasies to a profession and serious relationship. But the Underground is in trouble and a tyrant is raping the magic from the keepers, leaving Jareth in the face of mortality.
1. Chapter 1

The King's Fall. Sarah's Last Case. The Necklace.

In the dark of night, the castle at the center of the Labyrinth, beyond the Goblin City, always looked like a pale bone against the sky. The tallest spire, that shot straight up into the heaven's themselves, became something of a beacon in the middle of the moonless Sky. Dark storm clouds rolled heavy and pendulous overhead. Sheet lightning played across the undulating clouds, though the ground remained dry and rainless.

Jareth sat, looking across his kingdom, from the window at the peak of his tallest spire. One leg curled beneath him, and the other draped languidly along the side of his castle, moving back and forth in the cool wind. Had he been anyone else the sheer height would have been terrifying.

Clashing metal resonated through the night, and Jareth rose to walk back within his castle. His thick-heeled boots echoing against the masonry walls, and across the wood planked floor. He paused at the inlet of the winding staircase, watching as torchlight began to jump and dance following voices of the advancing armies.

Narrowing his eyes, Jareth spread his arms and a great sheet of magic protected his stronghold from the oncoming enemy. His forces had been defeated, his castle taken, and shortly they would surmount enough energy to break his spell and take the great Goblin King prisoner, within his own kingdom. Jareth trembled, and moved hastily to the farthest edge of the small and nearly empty room.

Here it was, the only method of escape. It was the final chance to save the magic from the dark lord's clutches. Distance had to be placed between himself and the enemy, less ruination fall to the whole of the Underground. Already the Royal Court had announced casualities that numbered in the tens of thousands, and their ruling parties were nothing more than prisoners of war to the tyrant that stormed the lands- unrelenting.

The thought firm in his mind, Jareth widened his arms to take flight as his traveling form, the white owl. "I wouldn't attempt the escape, Jareth, your already too late," the voice hissed from behind him. The Goblin King lowered his arms and turned, to face the cold and calculated glare offered to him by the darkly swathed Prince.

"Damien," Jareth stated calmly, walking towards his adversary with lengthy and only slightly hesitant steps. "How nice of you to drop in, and the entourage preceding you was quite the pleasure." He grinned and then stopped, as Damien himself chuckled deep laughter.

"I would have expected more from you, Jareth. But then you grow weak in your old age," he responded, and slowly uncovered his gloved hands. Behind him, Jareth noticed several armed gaurds, brandishing thick metal weapons, that stung the air with their whetted edges. Damien gestured for them to come forward, as they did obediently. "Give me the crystal, Jareth."

"You have no idea the power your demanding," the King spat out. Damien's eyes danced, but he made no attempt to prove his point, the soldiers carried out that aspect of the conquest. Jareth watched them come, both sides flanked by two straight-faced guards. Their swords and shields held out, at arms length, betrayed their fear directed towards the Goblin King. His infamous name known far and wide in the Underground, had made the slender man standing at length seem nothing short of a disappointment. "It will destroy you, Damien. A sorcerer cannot hope to contain it, even immortals have failed."

"Are you referring to yourself?" Damien stepped out, between his guards and stopped their progress towards the King with a brief gesture of his hand. He came upon Jareth, separated from him by a foot, if not less, and then stared into the Goblin King's churning and sparking eyes. "I see no powerful King before me, but an old man." Damien's hand snaked out and he grabbed the silver chain, strung around Jareth's neck. "But then, I can't chance your meddling in my plans."

With a snap, the sorcerer turned and his guards came on, rushing in at the King before he had a chance to react. They drove him back, and Jareth, unable to work his magics, found himself floundering out of the window, at which he had sat only moments earlier. But then his legs were caught, and Damien's face appeared above him. "Do you know what an immortal is without his magic, Jareth?" the darker man questioned.

"I will see you dead!" Jareth cried out, ignoring his perilous situation.

Damien just cocked his head to one side and then, producing one slender dagger, drove into Jareth's thigh. The King reared his head back, and lost his brief hold on the ledge. The next instant he was falling through space, and plummeting to the ground below. Damien, raising his eyebrows in shock as he turned to take the steep staircase back to the ground level, chuckled again to himself. "An immortal without his magic," at this he paused and held the crystal, which had been strung along the chain around Jareth's neck, up to eye level, "...is mortal."

The day always started the same. A shrill alarm clock bleating into the warm silence of the early morning, followed by the inevitable struggle from bed and shuffling into the cold tiled bathroom. Then, yawning in front of the mirror, the next step was to the shower and twisting the handles so that the small room filled with dense steam. After the shower it was on to wardrobe, hair, make-up (courtesy of Mabelline), and rushing out the door with a breakfast cereal bar and enough change to grab a quick cup of coffee from "Java Express" down the street.

It was dull, boring, life in a rut, but at least it was dependable. Something Sarah could rely on. There was little more left that continued on tirelessly at such perfect regularity day after day. On that particular morning she reached out with one slender hand and felt along the top of her dresser for her alarm clock- somehow it was out of reach.

Sarah lifted herself up, yawning and scratching her back as she arched it into a delicious stretch. Gazing to her left, she noted the clock, not far, but not where she had left it the night before. "Strange," she mused, guiding it back to the corner of her dresser as she silenced the mechanical beeping.

On the other side of the room her Cell phone erupted into a chorus of something classical. At that point in the morning Sarah couldn't decipher one song from the other if she wanted. She stumbled out of bed, succeeded in banging her knee against her wooden trunk, and then swore the rest of the way to her phone- still charging from it's overnight siesta. "Hello?" Sarah inquired, sounding less than pleased and by far removed from her usual chipper self.

"Sarah, hon, we've got a problem," came the startling response. She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, blinking the sleep away. The dawning sun was sending tendrils of daylight through her blinds, and Sarah walked over to them to slide the little slats open. Cars were already blaring along the streets, amidst billows of mist from manholes.

"You know I'm not on for another hour Deb." The blinds closed again and Sarah padded towards the bathroom. She paused to look at her image in the mirror, ran a hand through her hair and then turned to sit on the toilet. The silence on the other line prompted her to continue: "What is it?"

Relief in the form of a sigh followed on the other side of the flip-cover phone. "Something with the Quintly Case..."

"God, what now?" she inquired.

Another long pause followed. Deb cleared her throat and then, breathing out, muttered: "You know I wouldn't call you if it hadn't been of the utmost importance. Not at this hour." This was a preparation for something awful, Sarah could sense it. She knew even before the words flew out of Deb's mouth the next instant. Something had disrupted her morning schedule. The day was off balance.

"Uh-huh."

"It's on most the channels." Sarah crossed to the other side of the room to snap on her little television set. The first image, which had replaced her usual early morning news hour and talk show, was that of her worst nightmares. She dropped the phone, and didn't move to retrieve it, even when Deb continued talking to her absent boss. Instead, bending down, she glared at the TV and shook her head.

"Great," she muttered, snapping it off. At this she did notice the phone, but was beyond the point of needing more information. What she needed then was a new client, and perhaps a new line of work completely. "Just goddamn great!"

She rushed herself into the bathroom, cranked the hot water up as high as it would go in her shower, and then tumbled in before her anger got the best of her. On the dresser the clock had suffered from some sort of power failure. It's digital face boasted red flashing numbers: 13 o'clock.

The workplace was anything but calm when she entered. She was met with a bustle of paperwork, shoved into her awaiting arms, and two paralegals who were overanxious to brief her on the most recent development behind the Quintly case fiasco. As well as she could handle, Sarah dealt with the information, until she found her office door and floundered inside before being buried in the formalities.

"Why me?" she inquired, pressing her back against the slick wooden door she had used to separate her own quiet workspace from the chaos beyond it. However, it was only a matter of time before she had to face the inescapable. The folders fell upon her desk, out of her overburdened arms, as Sarah drooped into her chair.

The intercom buzzed and Sarah lifted her eyes towards the black phone sitting ominously on her desk. "Have you dealt with it?" the voice drifted into her space, prompting Sarah to sit straight in her chair and lean in closer for her response.

"What do you expect me to do, Mr. Peterson?" her question came out a bit too sarcastic and Sarah could, again, sense the trouble surrounding the day. "I-I mean, he succeeded in going through a high speed chase during the morning traffic and nearly killed..."

"Do you think I care about that?" Sarah tried to interject, but was abruptly cut off. "You get your client under control, Ms. Williams, or we'll be seriously reconsidering that partnership offer." The news settled against her, diffusing around like a bad omen cloud that hung overhead. Sarah breathed deep and bit her tongue to refrain from jeopardizing her probable promotion. "Do we have an understanding?"

She smothered a sweet smile over her lips and directed her eyes through the glass wall on the left of her office towards the balding man across the hall. He was watching her closely, bent over his own phone. "Of course." She raised a hand towards the boss and then leant back in the chair so as to be out of sight.

The entire case had been a mistake from the start. One problem after another eventually culminated into the day's disaster. And through it all Sarah could see the proverbial carrot strung just barely out of her reach: partnership. The goal that lingered in the back of her mind through her trials in court, and any number of hard fought victories. For a girl who had done nothing but dream her life's profession had been something of a surprise.

"I need a vacation," she whispered to herself, flipping open her briefcase. However, before she had a chance to get to work on the latest problems regarding her client, Sarah noticed a little package tucked against one fold of the rich leather. Her smile returned and she fished the present out, turning it over in her hand as she shook her head with a laugh. "Jake."

It was small, petite, and swathed in a pale pink bow that was, nearly, larger than the box itself. Sarah lifted her eyes again, looking into the hall for signs of her boyfriend, but saw, again, only the frantic faces of her paralegals flustering themselves over paperwork and phone calls. He was nowhere to be seen.

Bright blue eyes, handsome face, charming smile- Sarah's prince charming. The man she would marry, or so she had told herself a thousand times over during their long courtship. But then he had been the only serious relationship in her long run of short romances and brief dating histories. Length itself made her commitment to Jake that much more special.

Taking hesitation aside, Sarah pulled open the box's top. It was jewelry, and beautiful, but not what she had been hoping for. Her spirits slightly withered from the sight and Sarah took the delicate silver chain into her hand so that she could see the necklace in the light from her lamps. "Guess I'll have to wait for the ring to match it," she thought aloud.

Despite her making light of the situation, something weighted heavy in Sarah's gut when she spun the necklace between her two fingers. The little shiny bauble that dangled from the end of one long piece of corkscrewed silver filament, (which also wrapped around the circumference of the aforementioned trinket), was strikingly familiar. And, if she had to describe it, Sarah found herself immediately thinking...

*I've brought you a gift*

...a crystal.

But that was her adolescence talking, a time that was, *thank god*, long past her. Some fifteen years past. She shivered at the thought of age and the sheer magnitude of time and miles and growing up that separated her from her past. Proving that she was beyond superstition, Sarah strung the necklace around her slender neck and clasped it on the first attempt. It bounced against her collarbones when she got up, making it that much more difficult to imagine that it was something only...

ONLY!

...related to her boyfriend. He had seen it, thought of her, bought it, and now it was looped over her neck and sparkling in the sunshine that struck its spherical body. Sarah opened her office door to meet the onslaught of questions.

She listened briefly, but only long enough to remember that she'd forgotten to feed her meter downstairs. "Ruby," Sarah interjected, laying her hands on the young paralegal's stiff shoulders. The girl's eyes widened as she nodded energetically. "Contact Mr. Quintly right away and let him know that he's not to answer anything until I have a word with him."

Fishing through her pockets for change, Sarah grabbed hold of the younger girl's arm before letting her leave. "And please make sure that he realized that this will be his last opportunity for making an Ass out of both himself and me." Sarah smiled sweetly and raised her eyebrows once to emphasize the importance of her message. The girl, Ruby, nodded again and managed a brief goodbye as she gathered together her things to leave.

Sarah was already out the door. Immediately the tension in the air lessoned and, by the time she was in the elevator and passing through the eleventh floor- on the way down to the tenth- she could imagine that the day had the chance of turning around. Then the little crystal on the end of her necklace slid against her skin, and the goose bumps that followed only further assured her that there would probably be no way to remedy the already destroyed morning.

Further proof came when she rounded the corner to her car and noticed the yellow ticket flapping in the chilled breeze, positioned right below her windshield wiper. "Why did I bother to wake up?" Passer- bys exchanged a short glance her way, met with Sarah's icy glare when she ripped the parking violation from her windshield and jammed enough money into the meter to last her through the day and most of the night.

"Your really very beautiful when your angry," a voice stated from behind her. Sarah turned, relieved to find no more surprises, other than the pleasant one offered by her lover, who had appeared suddenly on her side of town. "Did I ever tell you that before?"

"No," she answered gently, sashaying her way into his arms. Sarah tilted her head up and kissed him, watching his blue eyes sparkle.

"Well, now I have." He returned her kiss and then slid his hands along the small of her back. "So, what luck to find you down here. I hate trenching my way through the hordes of there." Jake gestured towards the middle of the high-rise, from where Sarah had just come. She giggled briefly, laying her head against his shoulder.

"Luck has nothing to do with this day."

Jake just squeezed her tighter and then, draping his arm around her waist, turned her around to walk away from the office. Sarah stopped him, mid-stride, and then, with a depleted sigh, separated herself from his warmth. "Can't play hooky today?" he asked, turning the corners of his mouth down in a pleading expression that tugged at Sarah's heart enough to only further make her love the boy.

But she had to turn him down, less lose her prime opportunity up at the Law Offices of blah blah blah. "Nope," she stated plainly, jerking her hands into the pockets of her slacks. "Listen, I have a load of work to get done today, and I'm probably gonna be home pretty late."

"You know what, that's fine," he stated, hindering her from further explaining the reason for her bad day and extended work hours. Jake stepped forward, kissed her gently and then swung her hand in his for a moment. "You just get back to me sometime tonight and I'll be happy."

Sarah could only smile as she moved away from him, back to the hustle and bustle of the office. She had quite the mess to clean up, over the course of the day. "Sarah!" he called as she walked away, and she turned to look over her shoulder towards him. "I like the necklace."

He was out of sight before Sarah could determine if he had intended the compliment as a joke- reflecting his good taste on choosing the gift... or if he had never seen it before. She shivered again, clutching her arms around her torso and then entered back through the double glass doors, which led into the great belly of the office building. Mirrored windows sparkled around her, and she caught her reflection in one before catching an elevator that was, very nearly, packed full of business people sipping cofee and sharing in small talk.

Somehow she felt, pressed against the corner and between two large men with sweat standing out on their brows, that Jake wasn't being witty when he commented on the necklace. She touched it again as she pushed her way through the crowd to get off on her floor, and then promptly forced the worried thoughts out of her mind. But then, it seemed strange that she should be wearing a present, left in her briefcase of all places, that had not been offered to her by her boyfriend.

She spent another few minutes in her office, gathering papers and folders before she left again for the subway and towards the holding facility where Mr. Quintly had been detained since the chase. Nodding briefly to Mr. Peterson, on the phone and pacing in his office, Sarah made her hasty retreat back into something that resembled calm rationality.

But unease wouldn't leave her, and she found herself checking over her shoulder during the entire trip downtown.


	2. Chapter 2

House of Healing. Ice Cream Binge. A Night Visitor

Sarah entered the office, peering out from under a hat that had been drenched in a quick spring rain. Her hair stuck, plastered to her shining face, and hung in dripping tendrils down her back- over the pea coat that, itself, had gained double its own weight from sheer water volume. Things silenced as she entered and, taking the hat off of her head, Sarah glared at the people who met her eyes.

"What?" she demanded. Immediately they returned to their priorities. Sarah tapped her boots on the rug and then skidded past her interns to the seclusion of her office.

It had been a good month since Mr. Quintley had found himself jailed after the fiasco on the freeway. Now, brewing in another cell for violation of his bail terms, he was like a man on the brink of the inevitable. What jury would ignore the countless layers of facts that piled and piled as Sarah tried, hopelessly, to sort through them all. Unfortunately, she was unable to keep up.

And, as she entered her office, she realized that there was more than one unfortunate thing concerning that day. Mr. Peterson was sitting on her desk, winding a hand around her phone cord. His face was set, not a glimmer of anything in his blue eyes.

"Mr. Peterson... I didn't expect...," she trailed off when he rose and began walking, slowly towards her.

"I didn't think we had a misunderstanding the last time. I'm certain you realized what was riding on this case, at least you seemed to assure me of as much," he paused, standing only a few feet in front of Sarah now. She dropped her briefcase on the ground beside her, and, stepping past her boss, draped her soaked coat on her leather chair.

"Of course, I have everything under control, Mr. Peterson. I just went by to visit Mr. Quintley and we discussed..." Again she was abruptly cut off.

"It doesn't appear to me or my associates that you have things under control Sarah. In fact, we think that you got yourself into this too deep. I'll be handling Mr. Quntley's case from here on in." The set of his mouth convinced her, before she uttered another word, that there would be no discussion on the mater. Her chest heaved once as she realized that opportunity had just brushed her by.

Now it was time to plead. "Mr. Peterson, I swear to you that I can do this. I might have been hasty in claiming that I had everything under control, but it is all in order. I already have the case made, arguments, witnesses," she offered, hope diminishing as was her voice. She felt her shoulders slump beneath her boss's calculated stare.

"As of today your on a two week leave. When I've sorted through your mess, we'll discuss further your future here," he said, and his mouth turned slowly into a cheap grin. Tobacco stained teeth were revealed between his plump lips. Sarah couldn't speak as she watched the man fade out through the doorway.

Desperation clung to her as she followed him out. What she planned on doing had not quite hit her, not until his door slammed right in her face. Sarah stopped, her nose inches from the wooden surface and blinked. Glancing to her right she noted the two paralegals exchanging nervous glances. Whispers were growing and fading around her, like a surging and ebbing of the tide.

She straightened her navy jacket and then quickly left the hallway. Sarah allowed the door to click into its frame. Only then, when she had drawn down the blinds over the wide glass walls, did she submit to the frustration that boiled inside her. The tears that spouted out were as unexpected as had been the sudden meeting with her boss, and the culmination of his discussion.

Sarah slipped to the ground, beside her large briefcase, and curled her legs against her chest. Her hand slipped against her mouth, grinding her knuckles against her teeth to stiffle the sounds of her hitched breaths and little plaintive moans.

It took a few more minutes to compose herself and wipe the mascara rings from beneath her red eyes. When she again left her office, carefully locking it behind herself- For the last time Sarah thought- there was a lull throughout the firm. Eyes were carefully downcast and voices very discreet.

She at least appreciated their attempts.

Sarah left quickly, glancing not once at the receptionist, her interns, the nervous paralegals in the corner... she just ran away. The elevator stood open for her, and Sarah leapt inside, grateful for the solitude. There were no stops on the long ride down from the high rise office complex.

"Short day?" the security guard, Merv was his name, said to her with a short smile. Sarah turned to him and nodded, her own face merely softened for his caring enough to notice. She raced into the rain, grateful for the feel of it on her flushed face, and then walked along the sidewalks towards her car.

She was chilled completely through, and shivering as she approached the little silver Honda. There was still several hours worth of time on the meter, but it didn't phase her a she pulled out into the busy downtown streets. There would be another hour commute home. Sarah didn't even notice, driving the streets and byways out of sheer instinct. Her mind was lingering elsewhere.

When the Goblin King opened his eyes again he was looking upon a warm interior of a simple cottage-like home. Above him thick boards of wood interlocked like a lattice, holding the structure of the peaked roof together. Jareth blinked, startled. His last memory had been plummeting to death, hitting a hard and unforgiving ground that was only briefly softened by the thick hedges which lined his castle.

Now... He rose to an elbow, cringing at the pain that tickled along his spine. There was a mattress beneath him, not as fine and elite as the one in the castle, but comfortable and clean. To his left was a basin of water, and a cloth draped over the ceramic lip.

Something seemed vaguely familiar about the place. Across the way was a dresser, on which were ointments and herbs. A few had been crushed and worked into a broth that steamed. Jareth inhaled deeply and could almost taste the sweetness of the aroma. It was both satisfying and invigorating.

The only entrance was a door, which was shut- leading Jareth to believe that this was simply a room to a larger house. He chanced rising to a sitting position. Bruised and wounded muscles screamed as he lifted himself up, and a fur pelt slipped off the foot of the bed and onto the ground.

"I'm glad to see you up," a voice stated. But it was so familiar that it tugged at Jareth's memories when he turned to look at the slim man standing in the now open doorway. He had dark hair, and more tan of a complexion than Jareth. In the slant of his cheekbones and the curve of his jaw one could nearly see a raw regality hidden, only a few generations back. And blanketed beneath a curtain of thick black lashes were eyes so strange that they nearly seemed violet, particularly as Jareth now saw him.

"Gideon," the King said, raising the corners of his mouth into an easy smile. "I had no idea." He nearly continued, but Gideon seemed to understand. There was open concern in his eyes and he crossed quickly to the dresser, taking the broth in hand that had smelled so sweetly. The warm liquid tasted as good as it smelled, and Jareth quickly consumed the entire contents.

Gideon pulled a chair up beside the bed, sitting lightly as he watched Jareth. When the King had finished eating he turned to the man who had cared for him. There was cold steel in his gaze. "How long?" There was a moment of unease in the quiet of the cabin home. Gideon shuffled his feet from one side of the chair to the other.

"Five days," he sucked in air and fixed Jareth with his eyes. The Goblin King would have no softening of the details. Behind the harsh wounds outlining the man's face, Gideon could see the power and determination. "I don't know how long you were down there, but it was at least a day and a night before I dared chance sneaking into the castle grounds."

At this Jareth's surety seemed to wither. He remained poised, as if in thought, for minutes on end. "Damien," he whispered, at last. The name made the air thicken through the room, hanging like low and heavy mist- ready for the storm. Jareth felt it, perhaps, more intrinsically, than Gideon. But it bowed them both beneath an unseen but undeniable weight. "What has happened?"

Gideon looked at the king. "I don't know. I've heard some stories about the armies and the dark sorcerer," he could not bear to speak the name again. It came out foul and tasted like poison on his lips. In response Gideon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A noise from outside sent both pairs of eyes flashing towards the window- past the wooden shutters. But all was quiet.

"Then there is little time if they've already left," Jareth concluded. He had wasted too much of the precious moments left to them (those who stood against the power of Damien) holed away in this place of healing. The Goblin King reached out and grasped Gideon's slim arm, the pressure making his friend and healer look directly into Jareth's flashing eyes. "I must go... do you know if my father still stands?"

The mention of the old man in his ivory kingdom made the corners of Jareth's mouth twitch. He hated the prospect of going there for help, but it seemed he had little choice. Gideon nodded, still too overwhelmed at the idea of the King leaving to say much else. But when Jareth did gather his strength and stand from the bed, the weakness was evident in the way he walked. Gideon rose beside him. "You won't make it, not like this. What use are you if you die on the way?"

"If I don't go now then more might die!"

"Jareth, your mortal!" The words hovered over them and Jareth lifted his head just slightly to deal with the sharp blow. It was true. He felt it like he sensed the injuries he had sustained. The fall would have hurt him when magic had once coursed through his body, but seven days... "You won't last the night."

He twisted on his heels to face Gideon. The man was lean, and trembling as he looked at the king. But suddenly, he seemed strong and sure of what had to be done. "I'll go," he said at last. The tilt to Jareth's head betrayed emotion he had not yet been willing to reveal.

"No," he said simply, and laid a hand on the door knob. Gideon, however, was at his side, and pushed the Goblin King away. Much to his dismay, Jareth could not fend off the attack. He fixed his old friend with a cold glare, setting his mouth into a thin white line. "You do not want to do this, Gideon. I know the way. They'll find you and they'll kill you. Do you expect me to sit here, healing, while I watch the Underground falling to the hands of that bastard Damien?"

Gideon tarried at the door. He was yet terrified, seeing the powerful Goblin King reduced to what now stood before him. But there was a mounting determination within him. "Then we'll go together... but not yet. Tomorrow night," Gideon opened the door and a shock of brilliant sun poured across the wood-planked floor. Jareth lifted an eyebrow in question and almost interjected, but instead allowed his mouth to tug itself into a short smile.

"Alright. It is another day for darkness to take the Underground, but Damien is far from having the thirteen...," Jareth laid an arm over Gideon's shoulder, partly in comradary and partly for support as he walked on weakened legs. His muscles quivered, and one knee buckled under his weight as, slowly, they made their way into a long hall, lined with plush mattresses and dressers. Another long line of shelves were stacked along walls, piled with any number of herbs and flora of all kinds.

"Do you mean the crystals?" Damien inquired, careful to breech the subject. Jareth nodded, but he had spent his energy and was walking on sheer power of will. With a sigh he dropped his arm from around Gideon and slipped down to sit, plaintively, on the nearest bed.

"He took mine... hence the mortality. I don't have my magic anymore. The Labyrinth has a new master," he stated, half-musing to himself. Then, as if suddenly brought back to attention, Jareth fixed Gideon in his sight. "For once I am relieved that you chose to leave the Goblin City- and the borders of my kingdom."

Gideon twisted at the comment, and quickly retired himself to other errands in the place of healing. Jareth, exhausted from the short expenditure of energy, laid back and rested his head on one full pillow. Scents of soothing chamomile filled the air, and Jareth let his eyes slip closed. Gideon had at least been right about one thing, he wasn't ready for the journey to his Father's kingdom. He wouldn't make it past the borders of the Goblin City, much less through the labyrinth.

For a while he enjoyed the feeling of the clean sunshine on his face, until he heard Gideon return with a brief clearing of his throat. Jareth opened his eyes slowly, adjusting them again to the light. Gideon had fresh bandaging in his arms, white linen and a bowl with a white salve that smelled vaguely like… vegetables? Jareth lifted his head and eyed the substance.

"Not sure if I should trust that," he directed the shrug of his shoulders towards the medicine.

"I don't think you have that option… unless you'd rather suffer blood infection and the loss of your leg," Gideon lifted one raven eyebrow and set his face seriously. There was a pinching in the corner of his eye as he waited. Jareth, unable to hold off, faded into laughter as he quickly disrobed.

The body beneath his simple, but warm and dry clothes (some Gideon had obviously changed the Goblin King into after his rescue), was badly bruised. The linen that had dressed his leg wound- which he finally recalled had been inflicted by Damien himself just prior to the perilous fall- was soaked in blood and a patch of inflamed skin circled it a few inches on all sides. His chest was bound as well, and packed against his left side, below his arm.

"It was a long fall, your lucky nothing was broken," Gideon reasoned as he snipped loose the cloth and bandaging material with sharpened scissors. Jareth watched, quietly, as the dressing revealed an angry wound, but with fresh and clean edges that had started to granulate together. Whatever necrotic tissue had once infected the area, was gone. Probably removed by the skillful hand of the healer. "If I had been much later all this tissue," Gideon pointed out the reddened area, "Would have been lost. You'd still be many weeks in bed as it healed. None of my salves can work those sorts of miracles… not anymore."

His eyes tarried on the King at this last statement, and Jareth noted some of the old resentment, and a touch of used jealousy. But it had been so long ago- Jareth ignored the sight and turned, instead, to watch the outside through the open window. "I think it was more than luck. I should be dead, or worse wounded than this. I think Damien knows," Jareth mused. Gideon's hand slipped and the roll of linen he had been, gently, wrapping around Jareth's leg fell on the ground and slid across the room.

"Great," he murmured, under his breath, and retrieved the bandaging quickly, so as to maintain its sterility. Jareth didn't need a chance at new infections. He returned and, snipping part off, looked again at the king. "Lift your arms."

Jareth did as he was told, but his body cried out for the pain that such a movement caused. Gideon just continued to bandage. When the job was done and Jareth redressed, they both sat together and drank warm tea, made with a flower (which Gideon would not name) that brought energy and vitality to those who ingested it. At length Gideon removed both empty cups, letting them sit on the nearest dresser.

"Why is it empty?" Jareth inquired, thinking of the many injured who laid in dirt and petulance found in the Goblin City. He had had an army there, of people (yes, people, not Goblins) who rallied to defend their King. With the threat of darkness many were willing to raise arms. But they had failed, and the causalities sustained were immense. The image of the blood and death filled the Goblin King's mind as he looked at Gideon, waiting an answer.

"I'm retired," Gideon said, shortly, and rose to his feet.

But this was an answer Jareth couldn't accept. He managed to stand, but the pain in his leg and chest burned so that his mind swum. He reached blindly and grabbed hold of the lip of the dresser. One of the two empty cups hit the ground, exploding into thin slices of porcelain. "How can you say that? Do you know the death that covers the Underground now? Now of all times, you decide to… quit?"

Gideon's anger reared and he came upon the Goblin King so quickly that Jareth, himself, backed down. The bed caught him just behind his knees, and he sat quickly into the mattress. The healer's violet eyes flashed once as he pulled his face tight in his rage. "I served you, Jareth! I was there, or do you forget? Power corrupts, Goblin King, and I saw every last moment of its destruction. But it didn't destroy you, only people I loved- and those you loved too."

His voice sunk as did his infuriation, and Gideon turned his bowed back to the King. Jareth could find nothing to say. His mouth, slack with shock, hung agape as Gideon went to leave the main hall. "Wait!" The healer paused and turned to look at his once king. Jareth pulled himself up, strode to the middle of the room, and stood in a bank of sun that streamed through the window. "I had no idea."

"Maybe it's time you start paying attention, Jareth. You need to see what's really happening here. I know what needs to be done, as does your father. He'll say the same thing," Gideon remarked, but he was tired, and his voice came out monotone. Jareth's face had blanched. He also knew what was to be suggested.

"No."

"You have to bring her here. Soon he'll find her and then he will have completed what you never could. And the world will fall under darkness and death forever."

Jareth returned to the bed, now queasy with pain and fear and that which had been proposed by Gideon. Somehow it seemed that he had, conveniently, forgotten her and the time she had been in his Labyrinth. His only victor, the only one who ever returned to her home and dull life. Jareth was aghast at the suggestion, but somehow, he had always known that it would come to this. Now, however, he had no way to take her… perhaps that had been a blessing.

"I cannot bring Sarah back," he finally whispered. But it was loud enough for Gideon to hear.

"Then we are all doomed."

Sarah laid on her bed, burying her face into her down comforter as she tossed what remained of the quart of cookie dough ice cream into the nearby garbage. The large soup spoon was still in her hand, dripping melted ice cream on to the aforementioned comforter. It was the answer to every disappointment, ice cream, TV, and plenty of tissues. Now all she needed was Jake, and everything would be absolutely perfect.

"Except for the 'I have no job' part of it," she moaned, lifting her head to rub her red and raw eyes. She reached out, searched briefly for the remote control and, finding it, clicked it to another channel. Casablanca was on American Movie Classics and, sighing, Sarah resigned herself to watch whatever remained of it. She rested her chin in her hands and, using her elbows to prop herself up, started to watch it.

Her intercom buzzed and Sarah drug herself away from the sweet self indulgences and her personal yuckiness. She slipped over the carpet in blue bunny slippers and clicked the button. "Yes?" There was a static hiss, though no comment. She was already frustrated and so her voice raised on the second time addressing her visitors. "Is anyone there?" Nothing. FINE Sarah turned to leave again.

Another buzz. Sarah stomped over. "What?" Silence, save the static. She contemplated tearing the intercom off the wall, but decided that her insurance company might not understand the details behind her claim. But she wasn't about to play the games anymore. She crossed quickly to the other side of the room and, pulling open her drape, peered down to the locked entrance to their complex.

A shape cloaked in black stood at the steps, obscured mostly by the fact that it was night and the only light offered was by way of a dim street lamp casting orange on the sidewalk and against the building wall. Sarah narrowed her eyes, ignoring the buzzing from behind her. The thing was all in shadows, millions of shades of black and gray converging into uniformity. She shook her head, trying to pick out her visitor amidst the black surroundings.

"What is this?" she asked herself, nerves tightening to near a snapping point. Then it turned, and she sensed more than saw the being stare at her. But more than that it seemed to look into her. Sarah felt it probing in her mind, searching her for something. Something it wanted. She cringed, feeling poisoned from the sensation of such an act- like a mental rape. Sarah fell back with a little cry, letting the drape cover the window again, and landed swiftly on her tailbone.

She rushed to secure the deadbolt and slide her chain into place across the door. Then, still sensing the beast's glare, ran into her room and locked that door as well. Not until she was well hidden under her comforter with every light off, save one, did she dare to breath.

Sarah stayed like that until Jake called. And didn't open her door until she heard his voice.


	3. Chapter 3

Toby. More Questions. The Plan.

Sarah sat cross-legged on her kitchen counter, spooning mushy corn flakes into her  
>mouth. She paused, chewing thoughtfully as she pointedly directed the spoon towards<br>Jake. He had yet to leave that morning, but had forgone the cereal. Instead his back was  
>turned to his girlfriend and he poured himself a freshly brewed cup of coffee. Sarah<br>pointed nonetheless.

"I bet it was someone upset at me for the case! It had to be, they seemed so…  
>aggressive," she shivered and pulled her terry-cloth robe tighter around her shoulders.<br>Jake turned around, holding the coffee mug up to his mouth. "I'll bet anything that those  
>damn assistant D.A.'s had something to do with it! They were pissed about some of the<br>witnesses."

"Maybe it was a mistake," Jake offered, coming up to touch the side of her face,  
>tenderly. She smiled and set the plastic bowl on the counter beside herself.<p>

"Maybe," Sarah conceded, after a short contemplation. But she couldn't believe  
>it. She had felt the person down there just as she now felt her boyfriend's palm on her<br>cheek. Only the sensation those instances created were far different from each other.  
>Again a shiver caught her. "But if they weren't looking for me, I hope that whoever it<br>was is okay."

Concern masked Jake's expression and he reached out to take his cell phone in  
>hand. "You want me to call the police?" he inquired. Sarah shook her head abruptly.<br>The last thing she wanted was trouble. She could see it all in vivid Technicolor playing in  
>her mind like some sick movie. The darkly swathed stranger hiding in her condo. Sarah,<br>unknowingly, going into the shower… and then! Suddenly calling the police seemed like a  
>more pleasant idea.<p>

The hesitation gave Jake enough time to go to the phone book. Sarah followed  
>him, watching the white pages flash by. "I'm fine, really," she assured him. He looked at<br>her, and she knew at once that he was far from believing that she was fine. In fact, she  
>was pretty sure she was as far from fine as one could possibly be. But that was primarily<br>due to her junk food binge and the probable loss of her job. "Okay not fine, really, but I'm  
>pretty good- coping. I've gotten through the denial phase and the scared-to-death phase,<br>which must be new cause I never knew about that one before."

He grinned at her comment and let the phone book close. It sent a few bills pin  
>wheeling off the counter and down to the tiled floor. Sarah ignored them, for the time<br>being. "Are you going to be alright by yourself today?" The inquiry took Sarah by  
>surprise. She hadn't thought about being alone.<p>

"Oh- umm… yeah, of course," she responded quickly, perhaps a bit too chipper to  
>be believable. "Besides, I don't really plan on being here all day. I thought I might go for<br>a run, you know, feeling a bit restless after everything."

"Well you have two weeks to get that out of your system," he said. Sarah rolled  
>her eyes and exited the kitchen. Jake, laughing at his own joke, followed behind. "Come<br>on, baby, you know I love you no matter if your unemployed, destitute, homeless…" he  
>was met with a swift pillow in the midsection and Sarah's determined upturned chin.<br>Holding the little embroidered pillow in hand, and setting the mug of coffee aside, he  
>slowly approached Sarah. "You do know this means war."<p>

She flashed a tiny crooked grin. "I would expect nothing less."

Once Jake had left for work, Sarah found herself less motivated to actually leave  
>the safety of the condo. Who knew where the black cloaked thing was that had stalked<br>her front stoop- or rather the apartment's collective stoop. Either way she was still  
>unnerved by the experience. But the call of exercise and memories of wanton calories she<br>had witlessly consumed the night before, eventually provided enough encouragement to  
>pull on the sweats, tie up the tennie's and shuffle through her drawers for her walkman.<p>

She took the stairs quickly, humming as she got the headphones adjusted. The  
>elevator would have been quicker, but then it was nice to get this cardio workout started<br>ASAP- she hadn't been able to ignore the way her pants seemed a bit too tight. Too many  
>night spent with rich foods and a cute boyfriend. Sarah smirked, turning the corner to<br>take another flight.

The day watchman tipped his hat in her direction and Sarah returned the kind  
>gesture with a smile. The day outside was crisp, but clear. And beautiful! She breathed<br>in the cold air, feeling a freshness fill her lungs. The sudden desire to be out in the park  
>was overwhelming. Her muscles ached to go. However, the hand that secured over her<br>arm halted whatever plans she had made for her morning run.

Sarah spun around, her mind dizzy with a fear that mounted like bile in her throat.  
>Then, opening her eyes wide, she looked directly at a red-haired youth. He let go of her<br>arm, but didn't leave. There was a cautious look about him, and an uncomfortable sort of  
>atmosphere that revealed itself in the way he fidgeted and tucked his hands into his jeans'<br>pockets.

Sarah's hand covered her mouth, which had formed into a perfect "o." Then,  
>shivering just slightly, she narrowed the distance between them two. "Toby?" she asked,<br>stunned. Then, as the original shock had passed by, realization stole over her. "You  
>should be in school! How in the world did you get here?" Sarah demanded.<p>

Toby cringed at the shrillness of her interrogation. He held his hands in front of  
>himself, defensively. Sarah didn't make a move. She was more than happy to stand on<br>the sidewalk and confront her (now delinquent) brother. "I wanted to make sure you got  
>it," he stated cryptically. Glancing around at the multitude of pedestrians out that<br>morning, Toby wrapped his arms around himself.

"Got what?" Toby's eyebrows drew up, and he stared at his sister. Horror played  
>over his features as he, anxiously, looked up towards her apartment.<p>

"I-In your briefcase! I put it there, I know it had to be there. I thought it was  
>yours, and…," Sarah stopped him in mid-hysterical rambling sentence. Laying her hands<br>as calmly as possible on his shivering shoulders, she fixed him with an encouraging smile  
>and gestured for him to continue. After a breath he whispered, begging, "The necklace..<br>did you get it?"

A strange heat began to settle over Sarah, making her mind snap cleanly. The  
>necklace she seemed to scream it out, but only within herself. Unknowingly the grip she<br>had on her brother tightened, and he squirmed out. Sarah physically shook her head,  
>clearing her memory and pulling it out for viewing. She did the same with the necklace,<br>which she still wore. "I-I didn't know. Why did you send it to me?"

"Can we go someplace else?" Toby inquired, again watching people as they passed  
>the two by. Most didn't offer either Sarah or Toby a second glance. Sarah looked at him<br>curiously, but by then he had more than gotten her attention.

"Sure." She began to lead him back into the complex behind them, but he skidded  
>to a halt. Sarah jerked his arm briefly, and then turned. She was slightly upset from her<br>running being put on hold, but even more so because she really wanted to know the truth  
>behind the whole "sending of the necklace" issue. The day was just getting too<br>convoluted. "Well, I don't have all day, Toby."

"Somewhere else," he said. There was a flash of fear across his face, and he  
>suddenly became very white. "Is there anywhere else we can go?"<p>

"Okay… yeah. I'll just take us over to Jake's place. You up for a taxi?" Toby  
>followed his sister to the edge of the sidewalk and watched her, skillfully, gather the<br>cabbie's attention. Winking at her younger brother, she piled them both into the backseat  
>and, with a few short statements, they were off. If he had been nervous prior to the<br>excursion through bustling morning traffic with a driver who probably shouldn't have even  
>passed the driver's test, he most certainly was quite beyond that point after.<p>

"So, you sent this my way. Why?"

They sat in Jake's apartment, enjoying sandwiches they'd made after raiding the  
>pantry and the fridge. Toby seemed more complacent in the new secluded confines, and<br>far from Sarah's own humble abode. She was slightly uneasy at the way he had reacted to  
>her complex, but then there had been that weird episode. Toby swallowed a bite and<br>wiped a smear of mayonnaise from his lips.

"Well, its yours," he conceded.

Again the unnerving sensations were not in short order that day. Sarah pulled the  
>necklace out from under her tee-shirt and watched the light play over the crystal.<br>Somewhere it struck a memory, but it was one she really wished had stayed repressed.  
>Not that she actually believed in that sort of stuff, but still it seemed convenient for the<br>time being to opt for Freudian logic. Maybe she needed the defense mechanism.

"It does seem familiar," she relented. The words were difficult, but accepting them  
>for the truth took a bit more conviction on her part. Sarah let the bauble lay again against<br>her collarbones. "But that doesn't explain why you'd send it." Toby set aside a half of his  
>sandwich and then seemed suddenly shrunken. Sarah, the concerned sister, wondered<br>what had happened at home. She'd forgotten to call- for about two years.

At last he managed something. "There was a man who came asking about it. He  
>said he was a dealer and he had heard about it. Said that he could give us a lot of money<br>for it too," he paused, his lips flicking as he glanced again towards his sister.

"What did he do?" she was suddenly very convinced that Toby had been hurt.  
>But the shaking of his head stopped her rage, and she felt drained for having raised her<br>anger thus far to only have it be denied. Rage swept back beneath her frenzied outwards  
>demeanor.<p>

"Nothing. But, I felt like he was looking at me, although not with his eyes," Toby  
>paused as he seemed to remember the experience, and then shuddered. Sarah, recalling<br>the man at the complex the night before, nearly said something. But stopped. She didn't  
>need to frighten her brother anymore than he already was- which was plenty. "Mom and<br>Dad didn't know about it. No one but you and me. So I got it and I left."

"And Karen and Dad don't know you're here?" Sarah asked, closing her eyes and  
>rubbing her head. It was just great, once again she would be the bad one, given the<br>circumstances. Toby had come to see her, and as he lowered his eyes, she knew that the  
>parents were none the wiser. Currently, thinking him dead or tortured, they'd be scouring<br>the area with cops, sending out bulletins, putting ads on milk cartons. The whole nine  
>yards. "How could you do that, Toby! Jesus Christ, they're gonna be freaked!"<p>

Toby winced. "I had to. I had to get it away from that man. It wasn't my idea of  
>fun either, Sarah!" His words were very serious, and Sarah, realizing that she had just<br>undermined his very brave (although incredibly stupid) act, immediately softened her  
>attitude.<p>

"Okay. But you need to call them now! God only knows what's going on in their  
>minds."<p>

"You don't believe me, do you?" he asked, overwhelming hurt at Sarah's blatant  
>callousness. She looked at him, exhausted from the ordeal, and then managed a wan<br>smile. He couldn't accept it. "I've been here for a week trying to find you and…."

Sarah perked up at that. "A week?" she asked. Toby affirmed it with a short  
>"yeah." She touched the necklace again, her thoughts piling on top of each other. "I've<br>had this for a month." Toby rolled his eyes, and Sarah realized that she had jumped to  
>conclusions again too soon.<p>

"I sent it with someone. I know I told you I had done it, but… it was too difficult.  
>That's why I had to come. I thought that, maybe, it didn't reach you. At least I know you<br>have it now." He lowered himself in the easy chair and glared, dejected, out the window.  
>Sarah hated herself for hurting him, but would hate it even more that her Dad had so many<br>sleepless nights from the loss of his son. And she kinda felt bad for Karen too, though  
>only because it was the right thing to feel.<p>

She leaned forward in the chair. Toby was still not watching her, trying his hardest  
>to seem indifferent about it, but she could tell that it was affecting him more than he could<br>let on. A sixteen-year old boy wouldn't just travel across a half dozen states to reach her  
>without a good reason. "Thank you. It means a lot to me that you would do this, just for<br>me. I just want you to be safe, Toby, that's all." She reached out and touched his hand.

Turning, he acknowledged his sister and smiled in response. "Alright, now go an  
>call! And don't you get me in trouble," she ordered, but smirked as he trudged towards<br>the nearest phone, hanging solemnly in the kitchen. She couldn't even begin to imagine  
>the reactions. God I hope they don't kill him she mused. "Kids."<p>

When that was done, and the proper amount of blame had been firmly planted on  
>Sarah's shoulders, she led Toby back out onto the busy streets. It was late in the<br>afternoon, and the sidewalk was shockingly empty. "Do you drive here?" he asked,  
>casually.<p>

"Yup, but I had to walk back through the complex to reach the parking garage.  
>Didn't think you were up to that," Sarah replied. Toby flushed briefly at his senseless fear<br>of her place, but there had been bad vibes. Worse, he had felt the same thing around there  
>that he had when the man came to purchase the necklace. "Something was bothering me<br>though," Sarah turned to look at her brother as they started into a brisk walk, "how did  
>you know that I had that necklace? And why was it with you guys?"<p>

"You gave it to me, Sarah," Toby answered. He stepped over a large grated  
>section, which undoubtedly would open into some underground holding facility.<br>Underground. Toby was briefly caught off guard with the thought. When he looked at  
>Sarah again, she was waiting for him to continue. "When you left to come here," he<br>gestured to the big city surrounding them, "you let me have the necklace. I know you  
>probably don't remember, I mean neither do I really, but it came from Him right after we<br>got back."

This time it was Sarah who sidestepped to avoid a large hole lined with cones and  
>warning signs. Some sort of city beautification or maybe they actually cared enough to<br>make the sidewalks a better place for everyone to walk. "Him?" she asked, directing her  
>attention back towards her brother.<p>

"Yeah, you know…" the blank stare that followed his statement urged Toby to  
>continue on, "When you wished me away, Sarah. The Goblin King left that for you in<br>your room just after we got back home. Don't you remember?"

Jareth wandered outside after he finished dinner, looking towards the stars to  
>guide his directions. When at last he calculated the way they would take the next evening,<br>he sat on one little wooden bench and just stared into the darkness. He could feel  
>Damien's army all around him, thrashing and burning and killing. It was like a plague,<br>destroying all it touched.

"It's a blessing that I can't bring you here," he whispered into the still night.  
>Without anyone to hear it, Jareth found it most easy to speak the truth. Any other time<br>he'd lie in issues concerning Sarah, if not for himself than to protect her. The damn girl  
>was not part of his everyday thoughts, but her face had burned into his mind like a brand.<br>She was a deep pondering, occasional dream, even a fantasy. But, he had long ago  
>banished any fleeting wishes or fruitless fantasies regarding her ever coming back there<br>-or to their complicated relationship.

Besides, she had long ago given up on the Underground. She had gotten rid of her  
>fairy tales and she stopped daydreaming. At that point, when her last childhood wish left,<br>he had lost her completely. That had been years ago, and he scarcely even entertained a  
>passing thought about her anymore. Or at least that was the ideal. Jareth sighed and<br>rested his muscles, enjoying the cool night breeze. Whatever involvement Sarah might  
>have had died with the loss of his magic.<p>

The sound of a foot fall behind him made Jareth twist around. In his current state  
>he couldn't fight. The idea of making the long journey in a day seemed more and more<br>improbable as he realized the restrictions of the injuries to his very mortal body. And the  
>limitations of Gideon's medicines. In fact, it was the healer who had ventured outside to<br>visit his only patient. "You should rest."

"I know." Jareth took another long breath, enjoying the scents of nature. There  
>was an herbal garden near at hand; he could smell it intermingled with the rawness of the<br>Underground itself. A moment of urgency hit the Goblin King and he seized Gideon's  
>hand. "We must go to the Goblin City, I meant to tell you during dinner. I know the way,<br>there's no need to worry about that."

"Yes, it is near, but do you think that wise, Jareth? Damien," A hallow breeze  
>rolled up, hitting the two men solidly in their faces. It moaned through the trees and then<br>disappeared into the darkness of the forest around them. Jareth lifted his eyebrows, only  
>briefly surprised at the fear that the world had of the conqueror. "As I was saying, he was<br>just in the castle and the Labyrinth is overthrown. His men will be there."

It was something that Jareth had already assumed. But, given the large probability  
>that they wouldn't make it no matter their destination, he was more inclined to make a<br>stop at his own kingdom. "We'll need swords, or at least some sort of weapon," Jareth  
>reasoned. Gideon appeared to have suffered a great pain at the mention of weapons.<p>

"You expect us to fight?" The words carried with them the last trace of naiveté  
>remaining in the healer. Jareth nodded solemnly and stood back upright, more easily than<br>before. There was a stiffness to his leg, but he could feel the small magicks behind the  
>herbs and food beginning to heal, or continuing.<p>

"And we need horses," he added.

Jareth lifted one arm, rubbing the spot that was so deeply packed with salves and  
>ointments and linen. Suddenly the wound was itching and aching. Gideon took the<br>Goblin King's hand. "It was bad, Jareth, let it heal." Then, not uttering another word,  
>Gideon turned and went back into the cottage. Jareth watched him disappear into the dim<br>light.

"Tomorrow," he whispered.

The moon was huge in the sky, surrounded by her own army of star bits. Jareth  
>scanned the heavens again, intimidated by the sheer magnitude of all that dwelt above<br>them. For a moment he felt he could almost feel the aboveground, somewhere highlighted  
>in the midnight sky. A sigh breeched his lips and he forced a step back towards the cabin.<p>

Gideon was right, he needed sleep. The weariness had completed its job on his  
>body and had begun to infect his soul. Suddenly age was a very real component to<br>everyday life. And he felt it profoundly beneath the stars. Jareth, forcing himself to think  
>otherwise, ducked back within the cottage and fastened the door. He slid a wooden slat<br>across, careful to avoid invasion during the night.

The healer had already taken to his own chambers. Jareth, turning to the left,  
>entered the little room that had been his through the days of his stay in the place of<br>healing. He owed his life to Gideon, again, and had never done a thing in return. A  
>moment of regret clung to him, and Jareth hesitated, looking towards the other side of the<br>wide hall. But, it was too late. Too much time had already passed.

He retired himself to his chambers then, slipping into the bed after carefully  
>reapplying some of the ointment Gideon had left him, around the chest wound. The<br>itching started again, but he lay down and ignored it the best he could... until sleep caught  
>him and he rested fitfully through the night.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Damien takes another. Journey at night. Fallen King.

Damien entered the scene of the battle in a bank of thick, gray mist which clung to his  
>dark cape and seemed to break in a wave behind him. At his sides, but also slightly back,<br>were his guards. Their black helms shielded their drawn faces, and dark eyes. Black  
>swords were held, extended, as they surveyed the carnage around them. Damien looked<br>but straight ahead, where a small peak of earth had risen into a low hill, covered in grass,  
>flanked by bodies.<p>

At the peak of the uprising, had fallen King Gregory, lord of Palenthiar, near neighbor of  
>the Labyrinth and the defeated Goblin City. A smirk tickled Damien's lips as he rose above<br>his guards and breached the hill. He could see the King's body, a peal of terror forever  
>emblazoned on the man's ashen face. His dead eyes were open wide and fixed, and glossy.<br>One drop of blood had encrusted over a single pupil.

"They fought gallantly, but in the end even magic could not save them." He bent and took  
>the King's large silver sword in hand. At the base of the hilt, encrusted with crystallite and<br>jade, was the crystal. It sung, or so Damien heard, of a thousand battles behind the sword  
>of the victor. Saving the day, marching headfirst into the spurning deep. Now was its last<br>fight behind the army of the true.

He produced a clean dagger from beneath his heavy cloak and, cutting into the silver as if  
>it were nothing more than thin leather. He hewed out the crystal from the other precious<br>gems. Then it fell into his large palm, and Damien sighed. His breath brushed over the  
>perfect bauble, and it shone more brilliantly in the dense mists.<br>One guard had dared to approach the dark lord, and Damien acknowledged him coldly. "A  
>fine victory, my lord," the man said. There was a timbre in his voice, and a pearlized grace<br>in the construction of his armor. Damien nodded in agreement then tightened his hold on  
>the prize.<p>

"Hadamant is close. They are a small land, few soldiers. The fight will be mostly mine with  
>their sorcerer," Damien said, his eyes flashed at the opportunity to prove his own mastery<br>of the magicks. The soldier who was now beside him answered with silence. "But I will  
>need your mastery of war in the battle with the Ivory Kingdom... their fall will be the most<br>difficult of all."

The man lifted his visor to look more clearly at his lord. "The Tower is impenetrable. We  
>will not breach it without double the men now standing on this field," he paused at this,<br>for they had left the main area of the battle and were entering the camp. Many men raised  
>their heads and raised their eyes to look as Damien passed by. "You have yet to reach the<br>full power. Many have controlled ten of the thirteen but..."

"Do you think me hasty?" Damien purred. The small company were entering the heart of  
>the encampment, at which stood a large and dark tent, very much guarded and fortified.<br>Damien entered, allowing behind him only the man to who he had spoken, his commander  
>and general in battle. "Sit with me Isben, I feel there is much that must be cleared between<br>us."

The soldier did not sit, but neared Damien so that their talk was more intimate. None  
>could hear the details, not with the many conversations beyond the walls of the tent, and<br>the sound of thousands of dinners being prepared over spit and fire and kettle. Damien  
>clasped his hand beneath his smooth chin, his fingers in a steeple, and looked at Isben with<br>sparkling black eyes.

"Why did you spare him?" Isben asked, without pause nor fear of speaking a poorly  
>thought word. He was as much invested in the purpose as Damien, perhaps more so. In<br>the end there would be only one dictator of the Underground. It was at Damien's whim  
>what would happen to those who were loyal. And in the face of a fall and failure (though<br>however slim the chance might be) trials on crimes of war would ensue. Isben would be  
>the first to hang. But then, in the light of few lanterns, the commanding soldier was deadly<br>serious.

Damien grinned. "I enjoy a challenge." The answer did nothing to pacify his general.  
>Frustrated with the tedious meeting, Damien leaned back in the chair and took out the<br>crystal, turning the small trinket around in his hand. It was beautiful, a rich ebony that  
>scintillated with pin points of light as it twisted and rolled. "Why the concern?"<br>"He's a threat. I care not that his powers are taken, or that he is incapacitated from the  
>fall... as long as he survives everything you have done is in jeopardy!" Isben's voice rose<br>dramatically and Damien, caustically, laid a finger against his lips. Quiet ensued. "Jareth  
>will go to his father."<p>

"Yes, I would be more worried if he didn't," Damien answered, calmly. He rose from his  
>chair, walking briskly to the back of the tent where a small chest stood, covered in a deep<br>spell none could penetrate, save the master himself. He produced a key, strung on a chain  
>round his neck, and unlocked the bronze latch. With a brief whining of ancient hinges, the<br>top was raised and Damien looked upon nine of the magical crystals. Soon he would be  
>the only one in the Underground to harness their power. The time was so close that it<br>tingled like electricity in the air.

"Is that it? You want to make the games more... interesting?" Isben demanded. Again he  
>was too emotional, and Damien, securing the chest with his newest addition, turned on the<br>soldier.

"Let's not forget who controls this army, Isben," the warning was simple, though behind it  
>was much menace. The commander backed down, lowering his gaze; for in the face of the<br>dark lord none could look, not when one of the spells overtook him. Suddenly the air  
>chilled and Isben tightened his cloak around himself, bowing his head deeper- and fearing<br>the loss of his mortal soul. Damien, unvisible now to Isben, seemed to burn instead in his  
>mind like a luminous God, or a fiery devil.<p>

The tent shivered, wavered, and then it silenced. Isben could hear the hard,  
>uneven breaths of his lord. When he looked, Damien's eyes still surged like black waves,<br>rippling with the power of the Underground. For a moment the captain felt himself  
>disappear into their murky depths, behind the ageless face, and past the simmering heat<br>that drifted from Damien's body. Then, snapping his head back, the spell passed and  
>Damien was again as normal as he had been earlier. The intensity behind the atmosphere<br>decreased. In a moment the time had passed, and Damien's cobalt eyes returned to  
>normal, as did the entire atmosphere within the tent. Though the tremor in Isben's heart<br>continued. "I suppose that's about it. You may show yourself the way out."

But Isben hesitated. He was still disturbed about the sloppy methods used in Damien's  
>"campaign". Jareth's survival stung like an unrelenting wasp. Somewhere, in the back of<br>his mind, Isben knew that no good would come as long as the Goblin King still walked the  
>earth of the Underground. But there was more, another loose end... "And the girl?"<p>

"All in due time," Damien whispered. He thought of her, of the boy who had known more  
>and had somehow managed to hide the truth. She could have been a match to him, a true<br>adversary in the midst of mindless conquest. But, as the years had passed, she had  
>weakened. Now she was nothing more than a mortal woman, devoid of any lingering<br>presence imprinted on her from the Underground.

"She suspects something," Isben continued quickly. He wiped his face, feeling the sweat  
>bead and fall from his skin. "I would advise you, my lord, to take her as soon as you can,<br>before she learns anymore about . . . about," he paused and licked his lips, "...that which  
>she has forgotten."<p>

Damien nodded in agreement. Isben had, at least, advised thoughtfully and right in this one  
>matter. She would be taken, as soon as he had rested. "Very soon then, my good man,<br>very soon." His smile leered through the growing darkness, and Isben bowed briefly as he  
>turned to leave.<p>

That night Damien's lanterns burned themselves out - as he sat awake.

In another corner of the Underground, two men set out into the dark forests, carrying  
>packs strapped to their backs of bed rolls and food and other necessary supplies. Gideon<br>had gathered herbs of several kinds, and a few jars with colored dusts within them. He  
>had, in addition, crammed as many clean rolls of linen that could fit, along with the salve<br>and ointments for Jareth's wounds.

It was still hard to leave behind his cottage, the empty hall where so many empty beds sat,  
>lining one blank wall. Gideon waited a long time at his door, wondering if he would ever<br>return to the cupboards which remained filled with his supplies. There was so much he had  
>not been able to bring. In the end he turned at last, his violet eyes bleary and shimmering<br>from unspent tears as he forced himself into the darkness.

They walked steadily, at a good pace both could tolerate. Though Gideon tended to tarry  
>behind, he did so primarily because he did not want to speak. So many thoughts in his<br>mind were spoiled by the raw edge of hurtful emotions and unrequited anger, inspired  
>once by the Goblin King.<p>

Jareth, himself, was a pale outline in the night - like a sliver from the moon. He walked  
>upright, bearing the bulk of their supplies since Gideon had so packed himself down with<br>things of healing. But he hadn't complained, even when the strap of his pack bit into the  
>open flesh below his arm. A dark stain bloomed on his clean tunic, but the King ignored it,<br>and Gideon tried to say nothing as he, at last, walked at Jareth's side.

"Do you think it will be guarded?" Gideon asked, at last breaking the silence of the night.

"Perhaps. But I feel the majority of his army is further, to the East. A great man has fallen  
>in battle, and Damien grows stronger," Jareth whispered. His eyes flashed in the dark as he<br>looked at his friend. They were of equal height, and so stared cleanly into each others eyes  
>when they both dared to look.<p>

"The crystals," Gideon mused, and Jareth nodded to agree.

After that they walked much more without speaking than in conversation. The hours  
>trailed on, and when the first hint of the sun peaked over the tree tops, Jareth had to stop.<br>His leg was on fire, and the entire left half of his tunic had soaked up blood. Gideon, at  
>last able to properly examine the wound, found frank blood seeping from the edge of the<br>original hole.

He dressed the wound as best he could, packing it first with a soothing balm, and then a  
>thin layer of dressing, and at last crushed bits of a fine yellow flower along the angry skin<br>edges. Jareth winced and ground his teeth against the pain. "We must rest," Gideon stated.  
>The Goblin King, pale and coated in sweat, didn't object.<p>

After a small meal of bread and creamy cheese, Jareth laid down and slept immediately.  
>The pallor of Jareth's face concerned Gideon as he watched, alert to the noises of the<br>forest around them. Eventually, as the day wore on and the woods became thickened with  
>a sallow heat, Gideon succumbed to exhaustion. He slept against a strong birch, just<br>beside the King.

As the sun had passed her zenith, Jareth awakened. He didn't rouse Gideon, but did  
>wander into the forest to briefly scout the trails and gauge the distance they had traveled.<br>Much to his dismay he found that they had traveled slightly off their path, and much too  
>slowly. Beyond the Labyrinth there was still a good week's travel to reach his father's<br>kingdom, if it still stood at that point.

Frustrated with his frailty, Jareth slung the pack on his back and wakened Gideon. Again  
>they traveled, but more furiously than before. Jareth surged ahead, plunging through the<br>forest without tiring and, seemingly, without hesitation. Gideon easily kept pace, but  
>watched the fine trail of blood droplets, wondering how long this surplus of strength<br>would last them.

At the end of the first day the two had reached the edge of Jareth's kingdom. But the  
>Goblin King was deeply hurt, and his wound had reopened. Again Gideon packed it, but<br>saw a terrible graying of the flesh, with purple hints touching nearest to the edge of the  
>injury. The skin there didn't bleed, and, when he had given Jareth strong ales- also<br>included with the supplies- he carefully trimmed the dead flesh away.

After that Jareth slept feverishly through the night. He wakened once, to see Gideon  
>sitting solemnly beside a small fire. While he was immediately alerted to dangers of such<br>light and smoke, he couldn't deny the sweet scent of meat, spitting against a metal pan.  
>"Cooking?" Jareth inquired, rolling to avoid a rock that had pressed against his arm when<br>he slept.

Gideon turned. "Yes, we're near enough to the Goblin City now that I chanced the fire. If  
>we are to be found out, then it would be better now then after another trip." The firelight<br>played over his features, and Jareth sat up so as to be nearer to the smell of such  
>wonderful cooking. "How do you feel?"<p>

"Good as new," Jareth lied. Though there was a little color back in his face, and his eyes  
>seemed more clear than before. Gideon smiled at the King and nodded.<p>

"Good. Seems the bleeding stopped," he added, inclining his head briefly towards the  
>clean wrap standing out against Jareth's pale flesh. His tunic hung from one of the trees,<br>drying. They sat quietly for a while, listening to the meat spit and sizzle as the flames  
>crackled against the brittle wood. "What hope have we of living through this, Jareth?<br>Surely you know, maybe better than anyone else, what will come of the Underground  
>when he has the thirteen."<p>

Jareth's arm jerked and he looked, fixedly, at the healer. "Not ever will he have the  
>thirteen. Even if my father falls he won't find...," Jareth trailed off as Gideon pressed a<br>hand against his mouth. The violet eyes of his friend were near his own, and then they  
>flicked to the surrounding forest. When the hand was again removed Jareth muttered: "It's<br>safe."

"Its not safe, it never will be. But it would be best not to give him a better idea of where  
>he can find it," Gideon said as he backed away from Jareth. The Goblin King wiped his<br>mouth, and then stared into the dancing fire.

"Perhaps not, but I will do anything to save it," Jareth stated calmly. Gideon had removed  
>the pan from over the flames, allowing the meat brief time to cool. For a while, as he<br>thought, Jareth wondered where the meat had come from. The only bits they had included  
>had been dried and salted- not as fresh as what Gideon had cooked.<p>

Talk about the crystals, or cryptic statements surrounding the location of the thirteenth,  
>ended as they ate. Afterwards Jareth and Gideon both felt a power and energy return.<br>Having lost many hours to Jareth's unpredictable strength, both men opted to try covering  
>as much ground as possible while the meat was new in their bellies. They gathered the<br>supplies back together, and started again, this time following a vague outline of a pointed  
>tower, which soared even above the wizened trees.<p>

The forest grew more sparse, and the vague trail on which they traveled became wider,  
>better worn, and well kempt. The trees had become golden-rod, and far shorter with<br>silvery bark that glistened in the moonshine. "The Silverwey forest... I often walked here,"  
>Jareth whispered. A vague breeze trickled between heavy boughs, and little red-orange<br>leaves spiralled down like a shower over the travelers.

Gideon lifted his face, feeling the feathery soft leaves like petals. A pink had begun to  
>trace the sky, hiding the night's stars. The great moon, herself, was long set, betrayed by<br>the rising of the sun. When he looked again the tree trunks were faintly highlighted in  
>lavender, so pale they seemed like magic. "Beautiful," he stated. For all the disorder and<br>unnatural conditions in the Labyrinth and Jareth's great castle itself, his kingdom held the  
>most awesome hidden beauty ever found in the Underground.<p>

At length the forest became patchy, more of a grassland with few straggling, stunted  
>saplings. The path became visible and, growing out of a nothing that had existed moments<br>before, the monstrous outer wall of the Labyrinth leapt before the men. Jareth, standing  
>solemnly in front, brought his arm to his chest. Gideon didn't notice the crimson stain or<br>the sweat which plastered the King's tunic to his back. Such was the overwhelming awe  
>he felt at the sight of the great maze- it had been so long since he laid his eyes on the<br>beast, he had almost forgotten how it looked.

A sound, which could have been children laughing, drew Gideon's attention. When he  
>looked he noted one little girl, peering out from behind a large hedge. In the near distance<br>a fine trail of serpentine gray smoke lifted into the air. "Over here, Jareth. Perhaps they'll  
>give us a place to rest for a while, before entering," Gideon shook all over at the prospect,<br>"that."

The Goblin King didn't answer. Instead there was a solid "thud" as something heavy fell.  
>The healer glanced over his shoulder and at once threw his pack from his back. He ran to<br>Jareth's side, falling to his knees. But there was no response, and Jareth laid perfectly still.  
>His hand, which had been held to his chest, had dropped to his side and was stained with<br>ruby blood. The same was spilling around the king, soaking through the shirt, spreading to  
>his pants.<p>

Tearing at the tunic, Gideon revealed the injury, now so bruised and bloody that he  
>couldn't manage in unwrapping the binding linen. The memory of the fireplace smoke<br>drove into his mind like a beacon of... hope? No, not hope. Hope was damned, they  
>traveled now on a dream.<p>

Somehow he gathered Jareth up, slinging the lithe king over his back as he rose to  
>withering knees. The little girl, who was still watching, suddenly disappeared back behind<br>the hedge. A moment later, as Gideon collapsed beneath the weight of his burden, strong  
>hands secured around his shoulders.<p>

Caught, his mind screamed. But he could do little more. His breath tore through his lungs  
>in sharp whistles, and Jareth was limp, lifeless, at his side. Then the same hand went below<br>his own arms and, to Gideon's surprise, he was assisted back to his feet. Two men, about  
>his age, smiled and then went to Jareth and hoisted him up. A third had the packs.<p>

"He - He's hurt badly," Gideon stammered, as he fell into step with the third man.  
>The stranger smiled and gestured towards their home. "It's okay, our King will be fine.<br>Lily shall see to him." Gideon, sensing something strange and wonderful as he neared the  
>little cottage home, quickened his steps and shortly found himself upon the threshold of a<br>warm and welcoming housToby Leaves.


	5. Chapter 5

Night Attack. Lily.

Sarah had found a spot near a few oak trees where there was enough dappled

shade that she could retreat from the sudden heat of the day. Winter weather had melted

away, skyrocketing temperatures. She, being the loving and guilt-ridden sister who she

was, had suggested an outing to the park. The boys (Jake being one and Toby the other)

agreed. Currently, she observed from just over her dark shades as she dipped them low on

her nose, they were tossing a baseball between them. The heat didn't seem an issue.

"Typical," she muttered. Toby's flight was at five that evening, the earliest she

could manage given the time restraints. Sarah glanced briefly at her wristwatch. Noon,

still early. But, they had to get there early- two hours, or so it was suggested. She

wasn't much enjoying the idea of fighting through the crowds at the terminals.

The baseball landed near her and rolled to nudge the corner of one finger. Sarah

looked down at it, then met the smiling and sun speckled faces of her guys. "Having fun?"

she inquired, shielding a glare of sun that had obscured her vision for a moment.

Jake came fist and, dropping a kiss on her head, he fell into the grass beside her.

One hand met hers, intertwining their fingers together. The gesture was simple, but made

her love him all the more. "Oodles," he stated, grinning as Toby followed suit. He landed

beside Jake, watching him carefully, but with unmasked admiration. "Right Tob?"

The teen nodded. He had taken the mitt off that Jake had leant him, and placed it

in his lap. He toyed with a leather string, folded in on itself from years of use, and then

glanced briefly at his sister. "Did Mom or Dad mention that man to you at all?" he

inquired, worry evident beneath his careful choice of words. Jake peered over, his

curiosity aroused.

"Man?" he asked, looking at Sarah for an explanation. Her hand held his tighter,

but she didn't acknowledge him. "What man, Toby? Is there some sort of problem with

you guys?"

Sarah blinked once and suddenly realized that Jake was addressing her more so

than her brother. She rolled her eyes, trying her best to feign triviality. "Nothing, really.

Just a man who asked about," she brought her hand up to her collarbones, where the

necklace disappeared under her shirt. Looping it, she produced the crystal, which Jake

had once complimented a long month earlier. "...this."

"He, umm, wanted to buy it," Toby suggested. His eyes flicked briefly to Sarah,

who smiled.

"Yeah. Toby knew I'd want it, just got a bit carried away in getting it to me.

Then, there was a fight and he left...came here. Kid stuff," she concluded. Toby's eyes

narrowed at the explanation, but he wasn't about to argue. Jake, however, wasn't quite

convinced. But he dropped the subject, for the moment.

"Well, you two have some sibling bonding fun. I'm gonna bring the car around,"

he rose, letting Sarah's hand fall. She watched him, jogging across the grass. Down the

sloping terrain, he turned at the center of a large expanse of buttercups. "Meet me at the

road!" Jake's voice carried easily to them, and Sarah nodded. Then he was jogging

again, and moving swiftly to avoid a dog leaping for a Frisbee.

When she was sure she could speak without guilt or fear of being overheard, Sarah

turned her attention back to Toby. "No, they were too worried about you." He lowered

his face slightly. For all the trouble he had gotten himself into and the lack of thought as

to the consequences, he was a good kid. Sarah reached out and plucked his chin up a bit

higher. "Don't worry, I'm sure they'll spare you. And the necklace is safe, see?" She

gestured to it and it seemed to twinkle in response. "I won't let anyone have it. Not if its

half as special as you say it is."

Toby nodded and then did something that took Sarah completely by surprise; he

hugged her. He leaned forward, falling against her, and squeezed her tight. His strong

arms encircled her, and his head rested on her shoulder. "It's not the necklace I'm

worried about."

"What do you mean?" Toby backed up. He was hiding something. Sarah was

suddenly sure that he knew more than he had told her. "Toby." Her voice was warning,

raising a little high. Her brows knit together.

"Its just..." he trailed off, pulling pieces of slender grass out of the earth. "Do you

really not remember anything about the Labyrinth?" He caught her surprise out of the

corner of his vision, and quickly darted his eyes back to the ground. Sarah cleared her

throat and adjusted the way she was sitting.

"Maybe we should head over to the road," her suggestion was like giving up, and

Toby was hurt. She grabbed the baseball in hand as she rose, and tossed it once. Toby

was beside her, still waiting for an answer she couldn't give. In reality she was confused.

How to answer a question which required her to assume that everything she had

experienced that fateful night some fifteen years ago... was true? "I think I see him." It

was a lie, but she needed to say something.

Toby stopped walking. Grudgingly, Sarah turned around and looked at him in the

sunlight, red hair burning. A sigh escaped her and it sounded, more or less, like her

whining. Its Not Fair! A certain spunky, bright-eyed girl appeared in her mind. Sarah

tried to fight her back, but it was a lost battle. "Okay, maybe I remember more than I'm

willing to admit. And maybe I kinda remember the necklace. But, Toby, you can't expect

me to live in this little fantasy. I'm a grown-up, I have a job, I have a life outside

make-believe. Does that make sense?"

She wanted an answer, needed an answer. Toby's expression was unreadable.

She resigned herself to waiting, waiting in the heat of the sun pouring on top of her from

directly overhead. At last, kicking a clump of sod, Toby approached her. "Just don't

forget, Sarah. If something strange happens, you have to remember."

He was past her before she could ask what he meant. And, when she had caught

back up with her younger sibling, Jake was honking the horn for them both to jump in,

before he was swept off in traffic. The rest of their conversation was easy, light-hearted

and reminiscent about days Sarah spent in her childhood home.

When they reached the airport, and watched Toby as he entered the secured area,

Sarah leaned against Jake. "I hope he'll be okay," she said gently. Jake's arm wandered

over her shoulder, and she looked up at him, stretching her slender neck in the process.

He kissed her, tenderly, and then they both watched the last trace of him disappear behind

a large man and a few security guards.

"He got this far by himself. I'm sure he'll be fine," Jake assured her. He turned

her around, despite Sarah's desire to wait. Her gut told her something was wrong,

although what exactly that was escaped her. At last she relented, and they walked into the

hot day together. "Up for ice-cream?"

Sarah's mood brightened a little at the prospect. "Always," she said, laughing

briefly. Shortly they were back in his car, and heading into the city once more. Sarah

tucked the crystal away, under the cotton of the shirt and retired herself from worry for

the remaining hours of daylight. As they passed the park again she thought aloud: "I

think I'll go out running tonight.

Jake smiled, but didn't say anything. Sarah watched the park drift out of sight,

until it faded in the side mirror.

The Dark Lord stood in front of an equally dark oval mirror, the size of a man. It

shimmered and flashed, and he was looking at himself. Damien smiled, tilting his head

from one side to the other until, at last bored of his own reflection, turned to acknowledge

the man behind him. But he used the term "man" very loosely.

"You've seen the girl," he said, edging near to the beast who stood there, hissing

and growling like a caged lion. Damien strode past him, to the balcony which extended

out from the side of the castle. The castle in Terandil, within Hadamant. The king laid by

his throne- his throat slit. "She has something very precious to me."

Down in the courtyard, his army were gathering the last soldiers of a fallen people.

Swords flashed, blood spread, few pledged allegiance. They were lucky. Further in the

distance were fires and smoke and screaming. A smile tugged at Damien's lips as he

watched the destruction. The village bled, as did her inhabitants. It seemed, poetic.

"The Necklace," the beast said. But it came out more like a vile hiss, with the "s"

trailing on through a slit-like mouth. Damien did not move from his place on the balcony.

"Yes. I want it brought to me tonight, with her. Why not make the games more

interesting?" At this he did turn, and look at his minion. This demon who had, once,

never bowed to any living man- much less one who was so blatantly mortal. But now, in

the face of the power he wielded, the ancient thing lowered his black head, tendrils of his

fine black hair spilling over his face.

Then, lifting himself up, the scourge left. His heavy body moved lightly, easily,

quickly. Damien was pleased, and it showed in the lightning that flashed in his dark eyes.

Darkness. There were trees swimming in black leaves, all moving in a breeze as

soft as feathers, licking the boughs as they swayed up and down. Warm lights pooled

down, spreading across their slick base and the trail- which wasn't anything more than a

dusty ribbon in the damp night. Rain clouds pulled over the moon, obscuring the silvery

light into faint tendrils and vague highlights of white.

Though it was a quiet night, there was an unearthly sense of dread, like that which

one feel moments before an earthquake or hurricane strike. A pile of leaves were pulled

into a mesmerizing dance, just as Sarah jogged past them, disturbing the moment of poised

perfection, and they tumbled back into the street.

Her eyes were fixed on the darkness in front, her mind set on the darkness behind.

Sounds of the night surrounded her, and her headphones jostled around her neck, where

she had laid them when the sun disappeared behind the storm clouds. Now, long set, she

was alert to the danger she had put herself into. Driven to run further and harder by the

emotions and fears roused anew within her, she had also judged poorly the time.

Breathing came steady, her eyes trained evenly as the street came ever closer and

closer. When she turned she skirted past a large and ornate fountain, with horses whose

hindquarters melded into brilliantly green fins- at least in the daylight- that was filled with

algae. The water left white stains against the horse's black bodies. Sarah barely

acknowledged it, silent, turned off for the night.

"Chill out, Sarah," she whispered, breathy. She could see the parking lot where

she had left her car, nearer and the bank of lights became more intense. A soothing feeling

washed her of her fear, and Sarah slipped the headphones back on. A love song greeted

her.

So it came that she did not hear the bushes, as they separated in the wake of a

massive force. Heavy footsteps pounded the ground behind her, as a largely shadowed

male figure quickened his pace. He was dressed in a long cloak, that hung from his

shoulders and draped his enormous body in completely ominous black. Sarah was unaware

as it neared, as his breath rasped from his snarled mouth.

She did not sense the change in the air, save a shiver that stole its way along her

slick skin. She tossed back her hair, oblivious to the beast as he reached out one gnarled

and dark hand to scrape a shiny black fingernail over the wandering chestnut tresses.

The path ended into a grassy field, which was- thankfully- short. Sarah kicked up

her legs, stretching the taught muscles and trying to ignore a nagging cramp cinching her

side. She lifted one arm, turning her head. The song was over, the music silenced, and

her tape clicked as it reached the end of Side A. She bent down, to flip it, when the sound

of something behind her immediately sunk into the deepest part of her heart.

Pupils dilated, Sarah swerved around, and scanned the terrain. But there was

nothing. Even as she tore the headphones off and clutched her breath down so as to listen,

she felt nothing of the beast that had only barely escaped her sight. Sarah jerked around,

and again was met with cool night- nothing more. Whoever had run with her was gone,

completely. Suddenly the sweat against her body was enough to make her chilled.

She hastened her steps into the parking lot, pulling her keys out and gripped them

tight between her fingers, pointed side out. The mace she kept, clipped in front, came to

mind. "Stupid!" she muttered, pulling it out. Here I am, defenseless, come get me! She

practically screamed VICTIM.

Sarah fumbled with her keys a moment, trying to keep the mace ready for an

attack. Nothing came. Instead she, finally, unlocked the door and rushed herself safely

within the Honda. With a quick check of the backseat, Sarah let the mace down into the

passenger seat. Doors locked, she started the car.

The headlights flared, and they were broken immediately by a human shape,

standing just at the end of her hood. Its eyes sparked with the glare, and an arm raised to

shield the monstrous face. Sarah's mouth opened, but she could produce no sound. But,

instinctively, her hand switched the car into reverse, and she skidded back. The beast

stepped out, stalking the car, watching her.

"Oh my god! Oh my god," she whispered, her voice barely a rasp as she struggled

to gain composure. Now it was at the passenger side window. Sarah reached down,

meaning to throw the car into drive, and pulled on the emergency brake. "Shit!" Now she

was whimpering as her attacker drew back a burly arm. In one blow the window

exploded. This time Sarah screamed, and the beast actually backed away, nearly wounded

from the sound.

In two quick movements she had the brake off, and the car swerving back into the

street with a screeching of the tires. She dared not to look back, fearful that she'd see the

monster (one, she was sure, from her darkest dreams and from the stoop a few nights

earlier) clinging to her trunk. Horror movies played in her mind.

Fearful of going home alone, Sarah retrieved her cell phone from her glove

compartment and called Jake. Not wanting to scare him, nor betray herself for how stupid

she'd been, Sarah made a pathetic excuse and, at the next turn, made her way straight for

Jake's apartment.

He was waiting for her outside. She loved him so greatly as she rushed into his

arms, only shivering slightly. Jake asked a score of questions, about the window and her

current state, but she wouldn't explain. Instead, washed in a state where she felt stricken

mute, she clutched him tight... and made him promise that he'd always be there.

A promise he made easily.

Jareth looked very thin and very weak when he was rushed into the little cottage

on the edge of the labyrinth's outermost walls. His head was lolled back, and his lips

slightly parted. One trailed blood, from a split he sustained in his fall to the ground.

Gideon was but a moment behind the two men carrying the ashen king, and hurried beside

them.

They disappeared into a room, where a white candle burned and white sheets were

spread over a bed made of intertwined bark pieces. It was almost beautiful, what little

Gideon saw, but he found himself fixated on the girl who sat within. Her features were

sharp, distinct, and each curve was absolutely accented dark from light with the candle's

orange flame.

He had observed her handsome beauty for a short moment before the door closed,

and both Jareth and his helpers were separated from Gideon. A hand caught the healer,

and he came back to face the third man, who held the packages. "Lily will see him. All

will be well," the man promised with a friendly smile. He set the packs down and offered

Gideon a seat on a stool.

"No, I'd rather not," nervous energy boiled inside him as he paced the

circumference of the, rather large, main room within the cabin. At last he turned to his

host, at least one of four who dwelt there. "I'm a healer, perhaps I can help." There was

a look of desperation that flickered in his violet eyes. "You can check my pack if you'd

like."

The man nodded. And when the door opened for the other two who had carried

Jareth, he approached them. They conferred quietly, giving Gideon the opportunity to

listen to words being muttered in an ancient tongue, from the adjacent room. He caught

another quick glimpse of the girl. She leaned forward, laying a hand on Jareth's chest.

The Goblin King jerked, his face contorting into a mask of agony.

"Please!" Gideon suddenly cried out, and all three looked at him. Only the girl did

not seem to hear the plea. Her voice continued, soft and deep.

"Lily has always been alone," said the one who had walked by Gideon. He was the

oldest, with hair that had been salted with gray. His thick beard was, likewise, strewn

with silver hair amidst the dark brunette. Gideon prepared to demand he see the King, but

the man's face was soft and his eyes smiled. "We will make this exception."

They moved aside. His adrenaline sinking back down, Gideon came upon the

room. Only when he had crossed the threshold, did the enormity of the girl's skill truly

come upon him. She sat, sly and sprite and very slender, in a chair beside the bed. The

girl, Lily was what they had called her, wore a white shift, which clung to the curves of

her body like a supple liquid. Her mane of hair was like moonshine, silver and almost

glowing in the faint candlelight of the room.

Lily's hand hovered just over the King's skin, which was bare. Both clothes and

bandages had been removed. The gaping wound on the side of his chest was now a

puckered scar, long and jagged and pink, but healed. Gideon paused. The door closed.

At last the girl's hand lowered and she looked at him.

"Greetings Gideon of Greenwater, son of Trerin... your fame precedes you. I

know of your long time spent serving the Goblin King, and your family's dedication to the

throne," she said gently. Her voice was rich and thick, like melted chocolate. And while

she looked far younger than Gideon, her face betrayed her true age. One pale hand pulled

back her mane of silky hair and revealed slightly pointed ears.

"Your an elf... I thought," he trailed off when he realized just how blatant his

statement had been.

She rose, tugging first a sheet over the king's naked body, and then approached

Gideon. "Only half," she smiled as she spoke, and Gideon felt at ease. Her hand wove

into his hair, touching the few strands of gray that had infected the black. "You are a

great healer."

"I could never do as you," he responded. Even when he had been at his peak, and

the power of his skills was honed and magnified by the magic from Jareth, he could not

heal a wound into a scar within minutes.

"He will always have the scar. Jareth is lucky to have you, Gideon. Should we

have not been here...," she left the statement open for Gideon to complete. But he knew

already, all too well, what would have been of the Goblin King had she not worked such

wonderful magic. Gideon looked at the man laying in the bed. He was far older than the

healer, but looked ageless- like the woman. There was color to his face, and he was

peaceful in sleep.

"Walk with me," Lily said, gently, and opened the door.

Her companions lifted their heads when she entered the room. They met her eyes,

and were glad with her smile. All knew that the king was well, that he would survive.

Gideon could tell, by their attire, their faces, the lines in their skin and grime on their

hands, that they were born and raised at the edge of the labyrinth... lifelong subjects of the

Goblin King. Their devotion was pure, unable to be tainted even by the harsh reality of

the recently instated ruler- Damien.

When Gideon and the healing mistress exited the cabin, she stepped near him. Her

hair hung loose and easy across her back, cleanly to her waist, where it rode the breeze.

"He lost blood, but not so much that he will be weak. I suspect you two can journey

again after the evening and dinner. He will need, at least, a good meal for full strength."

Gideon nodded, he was pleased to hear that. For all the anger and pain he suffered

from Jareth in the past, he still felt their friendship like a chain which bound them. "I'm

glad." They walked a while, quietly. She paused beneath an ancient oak, where a swing

had been strung from a thick branch. The young girl Gideon had seen behind the hedge

was on it, laughing gleefully as a slightly older sibling pushed her. "Who are they?" he

inquired.

"My children," she answered. Her face became more beautiful as she looked upon

them, playing so easily. They were innocence, unknowing of the vast evil that moved

through the Underground. But, despite the pleasure at seeing the young still enjoying

such life, Gideon felt a sharp stab of jealousy. Lily, the elfin healer, had already tantalized

him and claimed what remained of his heart.

"You're married?" he asked. She turned to look at him, and her eyes flashed.

They were a misty gray, and deeply mysterious. Somewhere there were a thousand

secrets hidden behind her eyes.

She searched him a moment, and Gideon instantly regretted having asked the

question. But, gently, she lowered her eyes and whispered: "He died, in battle."

"Those men?" Gideon further inquired.

"Soldiers, true to Jareth. They would have died, had they not sworn an oath to my

husband." She swallowed and turned from the oak, walking steadily to the wall of the

labyrinth. It dwarfed them, casting a shadow some thirty feet long on the ground in front

of it. "They came to protect me. I blanketed this place with whatever grace my people

gave me, to keep it safe for us," at this she looked over her shoulder to her children,

"especially them."

"Momma!" the little girl cried out and then squealed in joy as she jumped from the

swing. She landed easily and then rushed after the boy. Her hair had been plaited up, but

it had come down. Fine blonde tendrils raced after her.

Gideon shivered with memories. The face of a little girl, younger then this one,

surfaced in his mind. Her smiling filled him completely, and he felt emotion well in his

throat. When, again, he looked at the woman, Lily was concerned. But she didn't speak.

Instead she laid a hand on the labyrinth's wall and sucked in air. "Your way will be very

dangerous. The labyrinth has changed. I assume Jareth knows already."

And while the Goblin King had not mentioned anything of the such, Gideon

nodded in agreement. Jareth had ruled the Labyrinth much longer than Gideon could

guess. This was his kingdom. Suddenly the reason behind him coming became more

evident, and Gideon realized that it had not been as foolish as he had first assumed. A

chime tolled in the distance, and Lily lifted her fair face in that direction.

In the sunlight she looked elegant, regal, and exotic. But there was some vague

familiarity in the way her eyes danced when she turned those gray orbs upon Gideon, and

the way her lips drew into a soft, though crooked, smile. She touched his arm, and guided

him back to the cabin. His moment of thought was broken, and he was left without a

reason why she should be so similar to something- or someone- else. "Jareth is waking,"

she stated shortly.

Gideon's heart sunk. He had hoped to remain longer. But with the Goblin King's

renewed strength, there would be no more delaying. Then again, Lily had insisted they

remain for dinner. The healer truly believed that they would stay until she gave the word,

no matter what Jareth's opinion was on the matter. Bottom of Form


	6. Chapter 6

Jareth's Despair. Sarah's Escape. Return to the Underground

Jareth was standing in the doorway when Lily and Gideon came back upon the

cabin. Her children were running around the large hedge, giggling and screaming wildly.

The Goblin King watched them fixedly, his mind intent on the children's games. The

sound of the two healers returning broke him from his mesmerized state, forcing the King

to look at them both.

"You should be resting," Gideon stated solidly. Lily laid a hand on his shoulder

and squeezed.

"Jareth," she said. The Goblin King seemed visibly shaken for having seen her.

He nodded, and then entered back into the house. There was a coldness in his eyes which

Gideon noticed. But why there would be resentment between the two was just one of the

many mysteries that surrounded Jareth. Gideon had, long ago, exhausted any attempts to

fully understand the man.

Soon they were all inside the spacious home, and the children were spooning soup

into their gaping mouths. They still laughed, and whispered to each other. Jareth had

separated himself from the group, sitting in a low chair where he could watch out the

window. The wall of the labyrinth was enormous, and he felt it within him. But so much

had changed, he could scarcely understand it anymore.

Gideon came up behind the king. "Why are you so troubled?" he asked, standing

against the wall so as to also gaze through the window.

"I have every reason to be. I've failed," Jareth turned his changeling eyes towards

his friend and feigned a short smile. "My weakness will bring the downfall of the

Underground and... Sarah." Though there was no sadness in his face, there was the pain

of understanding. The Goblin King had felt the touch of something real, an experience

few immortals ever were forced to endure. And his face suddenly betrayed age and

weariness as real as his subjects'. "I cannot fight this foe."

"No," Gideon said plainly. He looked briefly to the others. The three men were

smoking short pipes, talking in catches about days long past and their time spent as guards

of the castle. There was pride in their voices, and a nostalgia in their eyes. Lily was silent,

sitting with them. But her eyes lifted to acknowledge Gideon tenderly. "Not alone... but

there are many who would stand with you."

Jareth let out a long breath. His chest ached as did his leg. Wondering briefly if he

would ever have respite from the dull throb, he rose from the chair. "I am a fallen King,

few still are loyal to my rule."

Gideon took hold of Jareth's shoulders, and directed him to observe the men.

"There are three who'd lay their life down for you. Many more live like them," Gideon

licked his lips as he tested his next statement carefully, "And there is the girl."

The Goblin King turned, eyes flashing. "Sarah has long forgotten! She would not

help me, nor do I ask it of her. It's best she..." He snapped his mouth shut as Lily came

upon them, breaking apart the heated discussion. The fair woman paused beside Jareth,

and Gideon observed them, both highlighted by the dusk sun.

"I've finished the stew. And after supper I'll bring you to our barn for those things

you came searching," she stated, her voice lowered so the others would not hear.

Gideon himself scarcely heard her, instead focused on the way both Jareth and the

woman held their heads atop slender necks. Both bore such pale hair, wispy over their

shoulders. And their faces were both comprised of elegant and royal features, so much

alike that they could have been twins. For the first time he wondered if Jareth hadn't lied

about his parentage.

"I would not take anything from you. You have already given me more than I can

ever hope to repay," Jareth responded. But for the kindness that would be due his words,

there was only cold resentment in his tone. Lily hardened, her mouth set and her eyes

shone more brilliantly gray.

"We give freely, Jareth. I expect nothing in return, nor do my comrades. They

linger yet on the tale of their gallant King," she remarked sharply. Jareth lifted his

eyebrows, but did not speak. Their icy glares were more than enough to illustrate the

general dislike the two shared for each other. Somehow, somewhere they had met before.

Gideon stepped between them two. "Thank you," he directed his words to Lily,

but scolded Jareth with a direct glare. His words seemed to break the confrontation, and

Jareth walked steadily towards the long table, on which rested a pot of steaming soup.

The men stood as Jareth passed, and one tore the hat from his head as he pressed it against

his chest. The Goblin King did nothing to acknowledge their loyalty, but stood behind his

chair until Lily, herself, sat.

The dinner was had in silence, save the soft chattering of the children as they

played with little dolls made of burlap and inexpensive linen.

Sarah stirred, briefly disoriented as she rolled on to her back and touched her

fingertips to her forehead. She could hear some cars outside, and noticed the window was

open behind her. Drapes fluttered in a breeze, white and translucent- like ghosts. It was

still night, maybe eleven, maybe later. Jake was gone.

She reached out to touch the cushion on which he had been sitting and found a

lingering warmth there. "Jake?" she called out, rolling into the crevice between the back

of the sofa and the tucked-in edge of the cushions. She buried her face against the

material and sighed. "Jake, honey?" The silence that followed prompted first one eye

open and then the other. The brown sofa's fabric interrupted her vision, until a single

black feather drifted down past her cheek to rest on her nose.

Someone breathed behind her.

"Jake, why didn't you...?" Sarah's voice cut in half, and a vague exhalation of air

intermingled with a tiny squeak followed as she turned towards the noise. Nothing- or

rather no one... but there was something. A cold sweat slicked itself across her skin and

she hurried herself to her feet. "Oh God, oh God no."

Across the room the door was open and a crow sat patiently on the back of one

splintered and overstrewn chair. Jake's bookshelves had been overturned and now

obstructed the doorway and her escape, and books laid scattered in pieces over the

mud-stained carpet. Sarah shivered, holding herself, as she backed her way towards the

kitchen- that door had been ripped off its frame and laid in halves across the dining room

table. "Jake?" she breathed out, his voice a mere whisper that shook across her trembling

lips.

No answer. But something stirred from the bedroom and she felt the floor shake

as if something heavy had been dropped. A meek mew, like the sound of a lamb followed

the noise, and Sarah sidestepped a broken vase. A piece of porcelain scuttered across the

kitchen linoleum as Sarah entered, scraped her back along the wall, eyes on the bedroom

down the hall, where the noises had stopped, but the ground vibrated yet- as with

electricity.

The overhead light flickered as she walked in, and noticed drawers and cabinet

doors thrown in every corner. Pots and pans and opened containers of every sort of food

laid spread at her feet. She nudged them aside, focusing on keeping her breath steady.

Another heavy noise, and the ground lurched. Sarah hit the counter hard and rapped her

hip. She bit back the cry that followed as her wandering hand finally happened across the

slick metal she had hoped to find.

"Okay, okay, you're okay," she whispered, swallowing and lifting the weight of

the butcher knife in her hand. Others were in the sink that was running. Water had begun

to spill down the edge of the counter and pooled on the ground. Out of instinct she turned

it off. A sharp intake of raspy breath followed, and then footsteps- heavy and uneven and

unnervingly lithe. Sarah backed her way along the wall, found the light switch and turned

off the dying light.

She clutched the knife against her chest, fighting back tears of terror that pooled in

the corners of her eyes. The steps neared and she sensed a horrifying darkness, as awful

as that which she had seen at her own apartment complex door those many nights ago.

Sarah slunk to the ground, crouched, her hands trembling and her throat tight.

Then the doorway was consumed with a shape, massive and hulking and horribly

black. It lifted its head and she heard it inhale, taking in her scent. "Oh my God, its

hunting me," she thought and nearly dropped her weapon. But the weight in her hand

reminded her and her heart rose against her chest in a sudden willed urge to destroy the

thing that had succeeded in doing the same to her life.

Sarah sprung up, screaming. And the thing reacted more quickly than she had

anticipated. The knife buried itself into its abdomen, further away from her target than she

would have hoped. But it bought her time, and she bolted out of the kitchen. Around the

corner, her foot connected sharply with one chair, and she rolled on the ground,

connecting sharply with the bookshelf against the wall- across the door.

Behind her the beast roared, and things fell in a clatter of commotion. "Shit," she

bit out and pulled herself up, straining against the bookshelf as she disturbed the silent

crow. It answered by flying into her face, erupting into a menacing chorus of 'caws.' The

beast was moving.

Then the bookshelf slid over, landing firmly on the ground, and she leapt the

broken chairs out into the hallway. A hand slipped through her hair and she felt talon-like

nails slipping through the knotted strands, jerking her head back momentarily until she was

free again and running down a dark corridor. The lights had, during her struggle, all

snapped off.

"HELP! SOMEONE, PLEASE! HELP!" She screamed, her voice frantic,

panicked, desperate. The beast had cleared the doorway, and she felt it closing in on her.

Door after door was locked, and people stayed safely behind them. None dared answer

the call of help, sure that they would be the next victim of the attacker.

The last door led to a stairwell, and Sarah threw it open, relieved to find an exit

that hadn't been blocked. She pulled the door closed, grabbed the fire hose that was

positioned conveniently beside it, and looped it through the handle. Pressure against the

door met her resistance as she secured the hose with a quick knot on the stair railing.

Sarah turned. A black swirl of feathers erupted in her face and, taking the first

step blindly, slipped down the first flight, tumbling and crashing into the landing. Crying

she picked herself up and stumbled to the edge of the stairs, limping and moaning as the

bird that had frightened her began to follow her down the flights... And the door burst

open, making the stairs tremble as the railing pulled free.

"Leave me alone!" She screamed, speeding down the stairs as best she could. Her

body coursed with adrenaline that disguised the pain and gave her speed she had no idea

she could manage.

Five floors... Four... Three... Two.

She burst through the door and into the apartment's lobby. Darkness met her, but

so did glass doors. The night watchman was absent, but a pool of dark liquid could easily

explain his absence. Sarah didn't wait to see if she could offer help. The entire building

shook with the beast's heavy steps.

Two potted ferns framed the doors and the large windows. With fight-or-flight

strength she lifted the massive plant and hurled it into the glass, which erupted into a spray

of fragments across the lobby and the outside cement.

Sarah leapt the jagged glass and ran into the street, meeting a cool breeze and

orange street lights that remained on even as she looked at them. She turned and the

apartment lobby was vacant and cars drove by around her. She backed away, tripped

across the curb and sat promptly down on the edge of the sidewalk.

"Oh my god," she whispered, pressing her knuckles, two of them bleeding, against

her lips. Her mouth shook and she could fight the tears no longer. They poured out and

she sobbed, laying her head into her hands.

Then she heard it, wings flapping, feather busy in the breeze. The tears dried and

her breath hitched in suddenly. Oh please. She lifted her head and slowly turned to look

to her right, where the sounds had been. And a pair of black pants met her. Sarah tried to

stand, but her legs melted.

"I believe you have something of mine," the voice from the stranger whispered.

Sarah shook her head, looking upwards until she saw the face of man who couldn't

possibly be from New York or her world at all. "No," she managed, scooting back along

the sidewalk, feeling along the ground with her hands. She searched for a weapon as he

slowly smiled and began to reach out for her.

"Please, no," she begged, shying away from his touch.

"Oh but Sarah, there's someone who's been missing you," Damien stated, his

voice like a silken lie. And the laugh that followed like death.

He laid a hand on her shoulder and the empty streets, lamps, dirty sidewalk and all

the smells and noises that she had come to relate to New York disappeared into a black

oblivion. The necklace about her neck burned into her flesh and, out of some feeling that

rose in her gut, she grabbed the stone, broke the chain, and hid it in her mouth.

Around her light began to return, but so dim and muted and dismal that she almost

wished the oblivion had remained. Some sense of reminiscence, of nostalgia, slapped her

in the face as she looked upon dark walls that reached into the cloudy, stormy sky above

her. Hands were still on her shoulders when the world came back into focus, and she

jerked forward to relieve herself of the unnerving pressure they placed on her.

The scenery laid out in front of her was like a dream- a nightmare. The twists and

turns and dull resonance of power surrounded her. Sarah turned, and saw the man who

had taken her from her life, her home, her love (who only now returned to her mind like a

sharp reminder of what had been lost) and he smiled.

"Why?" she asked, backing away, feeling the walls and sensing the changes in them

immediately. Horrible horrible changes.

"You have something of mine, little girl," Damien stated, edging nearer to her step

by step as she slipped backwards. "Welcome back to the Underground, Sarah. The

labyrinth's been waiting."


	7. Chapter 7

Gifts. Brave Little Girl. To the Death.

There was a moment in the dinner between the inhabitants of the cottage beside the Labyrinth's walls and the two travelers (one a dethroned king, nursing wounds beneath a stoic front and the other a man with open admiration shining in his face towards a woman who was stroking a hand through her daughter's hair), where everything became suddenly peaceful. Lily turned her grayish eyes in the direction of the waning sun and breathed in deeply. Her lips opened just slightly, maybe to speak, and her fine teeth peeked out from between her lips. Gideon leaned forward.

It was then that the Goblin King's glass fell from his hand- rolling over his lax fingertips in slow motion. In the peace of the moment the shattering was magnified and Gideon thought, as he watched the fragments raining like crystals across the ground, that he could hear each piece seperately as it struck wood. Lily stood suddenly and her daughter backed away.

"My god," Jareth whispered as his feral features screwed up in an expression that bridged on the edges of panic. He stood just a moment after Lily and looked at her with eyes that could not lie for what had suddenly come to him in that moment.

Lily lifted her skirts. "You must leave now," she whispered. She had already taken two thick pelts from a wooden box beside the worn chairs in the sitting room when Gideon finally stood up. She pushed them into his arms, bypassing Jareth who had taken his and his companion's packs. His mouth twitched and Gideon noticed how the King gaurded his side as he sidestepped the two old soldiers.

"Take this too." Lily spoke gently as she wrapped several items (glass bottles and food with herbs), into a piece of burlap. Gideon held it tight and felt the edge of her hand graze his as she withdrew, tightening a shawl around herself.

Jareth was outside already and lengthening his stride to the wall of the labryitnh. In the night it was even more enormous than before. But he could see more than just the change of the wall as its new master crafted the magick. Firelight flickered in some corners beyond, and Jareth felt the presence of enemies near at hand. Something was stirring in what had been his world. The ground lurched beneath him.

He snapped his head around, hearing Lily as she stopped. "She's here," Jareth said, and his whole body matched the tremble of the earth.

Lily bit her lip. "Then you haven't much time." She closed her eyes and her skin became suddenly the color of the moon, radiant and pale. Gideon backed a step away. And then words, words so ancient that even the healer hadn't heard of them in his library of texts that were left back in his cottage. She spoke them like honey and wine and fine and delicate lace. They sliped off her tongue and between her glistening teeth to coat her lips. As she spoke the air became more solid and wavered around her glowing face.

Noises followed from the woods. The sounds of leaves crackling and twigs snapping and deep breaths that came out easy and quick. Gideon backed another step from the Healing enchantress. But her smile was so sweet and the words so beautiful that he could think of no malice that would come. The lovely goldenrod trees they had passed in coming this way earlier were dancing as two fine-boned horses emerged from shadows and darkness. The sun was too low now to light them- hidden in the bank of the great maze.

"I promised you that which you came for, transportation and sustenance and," she paused and fixed Jareth with eyes that bore no emotion, "... healing. But I stay here. As long as I have this blessing of my people and the power of their words I'll be safe as will my family and friends." She looked at Gideon then and touched his shoulder reassuringly. "You must leave. As I'm sure Jareth has already realized, someone has come to us now... someone who can change the course of this war."

As she had whispered the elfin words, the soldiers had come up behind her carrying heavy saddles- those from the war. The horses allowed themselves to be tacked with heads held low and mouths slack for bridles. Their eyes were on the lovely woman who moved like a wave of moonlight as she bypassed Gideon (he taking in her scent with a sharp inhale of breath), and came upon the fallen king.

They shared whispered words, those Gideon couldn't hear. Instead, he laid the parka's behind the saddle and secured them tight with leather ties. The package Lily had given him was by far more precious than the fur. These he folded tighter in their burlap cover and tucked them against his chest and the goods that remained from the start of their treck.

"How will we... surely the beast knows that we will try to breach the labyrinth," Gideon said when Jareth laid a hand on the cobalt stud. The other was a fair chestnut, and Gideon mounted easily. The horse was steady beneath him, but he felt muscles trembling and could only guess at the speed of which this animal would be capable. Her fine boned legs and taught muscles begged to be let loose.

Jareth sat straight in the saddle. "He has not anticipated everything. If the gods are willing, he has not realized what she has beyond that bloody crystal... yet." Jareth turned the horse sharply and the animal pivoted in direct response. Both soldiers went to their knees, again removing their tattered hats and laying them across their chests as they lowered their heads.

He looked at them and then at Lily. Beyond the great wall he felt someone else who called to him past worlds and time and distance. Jareth swallowed as his hands tightened on the reins and he shouldered the pack so it laid against the middle of his shoulderblades. "My gratitude is overdue to you and your companions," Jareth said, his lips a thin, straight line.

Overhead a nightbird called a sad and slow song. The black lifted itself onto its hind, striking its forelegs into the night. Gideon watched, awestruck as the same pale glow began to cover the man who he had once called "friend." The men were shivering as they watched the dark horse and ghostly rider. THey had never been so sure of their devotion to their King before- nor would they ever again.

"Rise men, rise those few who swear their life's blood to the Goblin King. I am no longer the king you served, but I will ride into this battle and when the time comes it will be you who will be the strength behind me. I will call on you in the time to come, be aware. Be ready." The speech resonanted in the night and the bird called again.

_He'll know, Damien will know. If he doesn't, he is either def or dumb._ Gideon made the thoughts leave his mind with a forced shake of his head.

Jareth looked once over his shoulder then gave slack to the rein and pressure in his calves. The horse responded and jumped into a steady canter that covered the ground in wide and sweeping strides.

Gideon followed, and prayed as his heartbeat raced, that the sudden silence in the night was not Damien listening and waiting.

**Sarah's hands went** out to touch the wall she saw in her peripheral vision. Bile mounted in her throat as she waited for the slick, wet brick to meet her sweaty palms. Damien now stood, watching her slow retreat, still only mere feet from her. He seemed elated with her fear.

"I had thought you some great adversary, Sarah, to have bested our Goblin King- to have been endowed with protection of one of the thirteen," he shook his head and took a single, slow step, "but I have been misled. You are nothing but a frightened little girl."

Another backwards step, and another, and she still did not feel the wall. A voice lifted in her mind, one from such a distant past that she scarcely belived she could remember it at all. _Things are not always what they seem in the labyrinth, so you can't take anything for granted._

She stopped, standing where she hoped he could still see her, but nothing else. Her heart raced so she feared that her voice would be muffled, but she breathed in and lifted her head as she had when Jareth was the one standing in front of her.

_But wait, wasn't that all a dream? Something not real?_Suddenly all the things she had told herself before were a little more difficult to believe. And then there was the labyrinth all around her, this terrifying man in front of her, and the sense of something else nearby that was just vaguely familiar. Her voice found, Sarah said: "I defeated the Goblin King, I overcame this labyrinth and I proved myself once already. If you ask it of me again, I will beat you too. I said it before... the Labyrinth was a piece of cake. You could hardly be worse."

A visible change spread across Damien's face, and the levity left with the fading of his sadistic grin. "Is that so?" Sarah watched as his hands balled up so tight that she could note faint traces of crimson blood brimming out of the edges of his folded skin. She lifted her eyes to his and forced her frozen lips to curve into an easy smile. The crystal around her neck suddenly burned, but it drove her on.

"My will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me!"

Damien charged forward, lunging at Sarah with open arms to entrap her against the thick mortar of the Labrynth's wall and his own body. But where there had been wall, there was now only space and he collided with her as she moved just a step to the right. Damien hit the wall, only much later than he expected, and his rage turned the sky red overhead as Sarah, briefly off balance, turned and ran.

"SARAH!" he screamed, and the walls shook. Bricks came loose around her in sprays of anceint dust. She slipped beneath one and jumped another. And now the ground shook and she stopped as a complete section of wall tumbled into another, blocking her path, but opening another. She took the new corridoor, briefly fearing that the destruction could lead her right back to Damien in his waiting.

"I can see you, little girl," his words broke into a laughter that filled her head like shards of glass, scratching and tearing.

"Oh!" she yelped out, running into a corner so hard that she felt her shoulder pop. White pain erupted all over her arm and she slipped down to the ground, clutching her head and squeezing her eyes shut. The laughter continued, drilling deeper and deeper. The crystal burned ever stronger against her skin, and her hand enclosed around it, the pain of the burn temporarily resolving the effect of Damien's laughter.

When again she opened her eyes the sky was dark and gray overhead, and shadows loomed tall around her. However, the voice and the insane peels of laughter were gone. "He's waiting," she whispered, slowly standing again as she watched for movement in the dimness.

She ran a hand along the wall, feeling for another section where the solid regressed and the passage appeared out of the convenient illusion of construction. It had been a fluke, she thought briefly, but one that had saved her life for the time being. A heavy urn had fallen from atop the walls and laid shattered in her path. Just beyond it was a door, heavy and ornate.

She carefully sidestepped the sharp-edged bits of glass and ceramic. Her arm throbbed, and she could not very well make a quick retreat if injured more severely on these dangerous pieces. Wounded and bleeding made for a difficult situation in a quick get-away.

"Ah," the voice sent ice along her spine and Sarah nearly tripped and fell into that which she had been so careful to avoid. She turned, and he stood there, his grin slowly returning. "You talk like a warrior, but inside I can taste your fear. Why fight it, Sarah? I am beyond your power of will, beyond your Goblin King. As for Jareth, he's gone as well. Gone and weak and old and wasted since you left. You have no friends here, Sarah, no one to help you this time around." Damien's eyes flashed gold, then red and black. Sarah stopped, unable to move. He made sense, everything he said. How would she hope to fight him when he had so much power and she had... nothing.

"It doesn't have to be so bad for you either," Damien's voice lowered to a seductive purr as he bypassed the enormous broken urn and came upon her. His hands, too smooth and lineless to be human, touched her face and she felt her skin crawl beneath the contact. "You could be my queen if you say... if you say what you never said before to your lovely Goblin King." He lowered his head and nipped the lobe of her ear with sharp teeth. Sarah cringed and felt a tear brim in the corner of her eye.

"No." But her voice cracked and she felt the warmth that had been assuring, though painful, begin to fade. The door behind her was a faded memory. She wasn't even sure it was still there.

"Do you fear me, Sarah?" Damien asked, his breath hot and sticky on the flesh of her neck. She turned her face and whimpered. Damien ran a finger across the curve of her jaw. "Do you?" He turned her head sharply and their eyes met, only inches apart. She felt the heat from his face on her own and could only widen her eyes in response.

"Yes." The word sounded a toll of doom and loss in her mind so great that more tears sprang in her chestnut eyes and she could do nothing but let them fall along her arched cheekbones and down to her chin and across her lips.

Damien smiled again and lifted her hand, palm up, to his mouth. He bit down hard on her wrist and Sarah whimpered again. "Will do as I say, be my slave?"

"Never," she bit out, sobbing as he licked her palm and tightened his hold on her hand so that her bones ground together.

"Will you do as I say, Sarah?"

A sound lifted in the dark and the hold he had gained over her mind lessened. She snapped her hand back and took a step, feeling the rough grain of the door against her. She touched the handle, the slick metal like the greatest gift of god she could imagine. "NEVER," she spat the word out like foul poison. Damien's teeth ground, but he had heard what she had, and he turned towards the noises.

Horses, coming from somewhere in the labyrinth. Only, as they both stood and listened, the hoofbeats came from all sides. Briefly she feared that he had called for reinforcement, but the surprised look on his face abbated her fears. He had not anticipated company. And maybe, just maybe, he had taken something... or someone for granted.

"Not going according to your plans?" she asked caustically. Damien twisted around, his face angled into rage. Those eyes burned a black fire that seemed endless. Sarah clutched the knob behind her, trying to move and turn and escape, but he was quick and his hands were on her, throwing her across the atrium in which they were standing. She hit the wall and missed the urn. Her injured arm sang with new agony as Damien cross the distance between them in several quick strides.

"I'm taking what is mine and leaving your remains spread through this maze at all corners!"

The sounds of the horses has silenced, and Sarah could do nothing but squirm against the wall that trapped her here with this mad man. His hand snaked out, going for her neck, long fingernails ready to loose her blood from her flesh.

"Damien!" the voice rose like a toll of a bell and Sarah's breath hitched in as the man before her stopped. His face froze, his eyes wide and suddenly for a moment the feel of control shifted to the man who had spoken this sorcerer's name. Damien stood, slowly, and feigned joviality at his guest.

They met face to face again, and Jareth mocked a bow. "I admit, Damien, you bested me in my kingdom, nearly killed me and sent me into disgrace. But you only nearly killed me, and that was your mistake. Because you will not beat me again and you will NOT lay a hand on the girl."

"And how, Jareth... dear, Jareth... do you expect to fight me without your magicks?" Damien's grin had grown and Sarah felt his power surging beneath him. She slipped a hand across the ground, touching the nearest fragment of the urn with outstretched fingers. Neither man turned, nor noticed her as she slowly rose to her legs.

But before she could act, Damien had thrown her back without moving. The power she had felt tossed her, as though she weighed nothing, against the door. Sarah slumped to the ground, disoriented and burning with pain as Damien snickered. "Naughty, naughty- it's time for the grown ups to handle this," he chided. "And Jareth, what do you propose? I have all the time in the world for you now- because I won't make the same mistake twice. This time I won't stop until your body lies at my feet."

"Very well," Jareth stated, his own grin revealing pointed canines that flashed in the dark. He reached behind his back and withdrew the thing that Lily had given him when she spoke in secret by the labyrinth's walls. It glistened and whipped through the night like a slice of molten moon. It sung and Damien backed away, noting the faint green glow that edged around the blade. It's whetted side sparkled and Jareth twisted the sword in his hands.

"I'm ready when you are," Jareth said and watched as Damien's own weapon formed in his hands- a blade of black metal.

"Then let it begin... to the death!"


	8. Chapter 8

Fog. The duel. Meeting Sarah.

Gideon stood, shifting his weight from one foot to another as his hands, slick with sweat and with a touch of tremor, gripped the reins on either of the two attentive horses. Their hooves echoed on the moist cobbled floor at the edge of the Labyrinth just where it met with the great misty forests that separated the kingdom for the rest of the Underground. Just here there was a churning black river, where a scent of rot and decay and mildew made the healer even more nervous.

He heard the sounds of metal meeting metal and knew that it had begun. And while the many gifts of healing that Lily had given him made his mind slightly more eased, his entire being wished not to be standing with the steeds at the edge of a rotted wooden bridge watching heavy and plump insects travel through a low hanging fog. Even the fog smelled like waste and age- everything felt old as he looked around.

A great sound of a crash echoed and Gideon winced, his purple eyes screwed up as he waited, but only silence followed. His throat worked over a thickened part of his esophagus as he craned his head to peer through the thick gray/green fog wound its way like fingers grabbing the walls of the labyrinth in an unyielding grip. Tendrils weaved around his legs and he felt mowed down beneath the thickening of the air. His lungs burned with each breath and sweat dotted his brow despite the deep chill that numbed his bones and gnawed like rodents into his joints. Ice felt drilled in his fingers as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

_He's dead, Upon the House of the Fey Court, He's dead._ There was no time to wait, plan or no... the silence lingered and convinced the healer that here hope ended and action was the last of his options. Gideon tugged the reins, but the horses merely dropped their heads, hooves firmly planted in place at the brink of the bridge. The water splashing and falling across slick black rocks remained the only sound as Gideon, frantically, dropped the reins.

"To hell with you, you devil breeds," he spat out, his eyes flashing and his already fair face gone a shade past white. He looked like a haunt in the middle of the fog as he lurched over the ground on knees that protested beneath him.

"What did you do, Jareth... what did you do?"

**The sorcerer realized the fact quickly,**Jareth was the more skilled swordsman and, even though Damien's weapon had been wrought from his own much advanced magics, Jareth's sword sung unlike any he'd ever seen. The blade was superior, and shortly Damien was only barely able to control himself from panting like a winded dog. His face screwed up with determination and exhaustion, he could only just concentrate on evading the singing blade as he held the defiant girl back with what remained of his dwindling power.

"Had enough?" Damian ripped the words out from his mouth and spittle sprayed from his lips. His face was a white cloud of deeply lined features surrounding the two cobalt orbs of his eyes that burned as they observed this man who he had already defeated, and yet could not seem to best. Jareth laughed and Damian's brilliantly red lips tightened into a fine line that looked like a bleeding slash through his skin.

Jareth took a backwards step, leapt a large block of masonry and landed beside Damien, sword mere inches from the sorcerers face. "I've only just begun, my friend," Jareth taunted. The blade hummed by Damien's face and the beast who had been man watched his black hair fall to the ground. Fine droplets of blood met it and he touched the side of his face, feeling warmth and wet. His glove stained crimson as he withdrew it and saw the sight of vulnerability.

This would not end well.

Fury raged in his eyes, at the edge of the deep blackness. In the dim light and growing fog Jareth saw the trace of crimson against the dark like the fire in the edge of cobalt milk glass. But it was faint, more so than before. Damien was fading, his power nearly spent. "You will regret this, Jareth! What chances have you of defeating me and my army? I will send them in tens of thousands to kill you and that...," a moment where his lips peeled back to show his flashing white teeth, "bitch!"

Sarah, who had been silently fighting the force that held her against the doors, lifted her head and narrowed her eyes. Still feeling the pain of impact, but toned to a dull ache as she clenched her jaw, she managed a step from her imposed stagnation... and then another. Somewhere a tremor of the earth began and the wall beside the dueling foes began to shake.

The air rippled around the three and Sarah felt the crystal that still bounced on her chest begin to burn. It too raged with a fire only barely concealed.

"Do you feel it Damien?" Jareth asked, sidestepping a brilliantly powerful stroke that nearly caught the sleeve of his tunic. Damien crouched to avoid the counterstrike and then, smearing a film of sweat from his face with the back of his arm, straightened himself and met Jareth's weapon with his own. Sparks danced in the night.

He did, felt the shake and rumble beneath him. It was weak, magic in the hands of a novice, but one who dared practice nonetheless. There were so few left beyond his grasp. Something more he sensed, a sudden tearing at his mind and then the connection between him and the girl broke. Damien turned, taken off guard, and the world erupted into a brilliant flash of reds and whites behind his black eyes.

The sleek sorcerer, his body slighter than even Jareth's, staggered backwards as his vision swam and his head rang with pain. "You bastard," he slurred the words. The girl was slow, still woozy and unsure after the spell. Jareth had paused, watching Damien catch himself after the blow to his head.

This was neither the time nor the place for their final battle. There were more crystals waiting than the one around the harlot's neck. He lowered his sword and smiled. "Very well, Jareth. To the victor go the spoils, but this war is far from over."

The ground lurched suddenly beneath them and, in its weakened state and ages of disrepair, the entire portion of the wall beside Jareth and Sarah, first bowed inwards and then collapsed.

Damien was gone before the cloud of dust rose, following the great crash of mortar and stone and caulking. Sarah let out one sharp cry as the world was swallowed up into the chaos of collapse. Jareth, who stood a few feet before her was, himself, consumed in blackness.

And then it was very quiet.

_**Oh God, Oh God.**_**Gideon**traversed the ground in a loping jog feeling the silence like a death knell. He had dropped the pack that he'd slung over his back close to the horses, which stood like dumb cows, patient and stupid. The animals didn't know, couldn't know what the silence meant. The fog cascaded in front of him, moving like the ocean in ebb and flow of gray moisture. He broke through bank after bank, hearing only the tearing of his breath in and out of his lungs as panic seized his chest in a sudden paralysis.

"JARETH!" he bellowed the name into the fog, but it came out muffled and there was no echo. The Labyrinth swallowed his words and he turned, his heart beating thick blood in his ears making the yell sound fainter still. "JARETH!" He cupped his hands as he yelled the name into the dark mists that followed him.

His eyes were wide and frantic, air peeling past his lips that were tight against his teeth. High flushes of color painted his cheeks but he no longer felt the cold. There was a sound of rocks falling again and Gideon turned sharply. It sounded almost like a footstep.

"Jareth?" He uttered the name, breathless. The jog became a slow trot, and that a hasty walk, and then a cautious pace as he heard more stray bits of debris raining down from what appeared to be a fallen portion of a wall that had once loomed ominously in ages past. Ten years past even.

Silhouetted figures came in and out of focus as the fog wafted past the healer. He reached out, as if to part it like heavy curtains. The figures moved. "Gideon?" Jareth's voice sounded winded, but he was alive.

"You bloody bastard!" Gideon spat out, but he did not move. He could only just see his hand held out in front of his face and the vague suggestion of bodies ahead of him. The rocks and stones of the wall were a hazard that the fog concealed at his feet. He could not see the ground, could barely hear his feet as they traveled across it. His heart still beat firmly in his ears. "I've been yelling and... and... running after you ever since I heard that, that sound. And here you are, Jareth, here you are you fucking wank. Just like before, isn't it?" Gideon turned, his eyes seeing everything too brilliantly to continue to watch shafts of light break on the fog.

"Gideon!" There was a sound of scrambling across the mess of the wall and the healer stopped as a hand sealed itself around his shoulder. "I...," Jareth stopped as he walked around to face his old acquaintance, his once close companion. But Gideon just shook his head and gestured forwards.

"The horses are waiting, they knew better than me I suppose that loud noises and deafening silence mean only that you are trying for the grandly anticipated and victorious arrival," Gideon shrugged the hand off his shoulder with a deep exhale. Fog made spirals around his face. He wiped the accumulated moisture off of him and pulled the hood of his parka over his head. His hair already hung in drenched tendrils around his ashen face.

But he turned and acknowledged the girl. If possible, she looked more stunned, sicklier and paler than he. Her hair, a deep brown, was also slicked across her chicks and forehead with the wetness of the fog. Her clothes clung to her as though she was swimming in the ocean, and not through the dense cloud that had consumed them. She looked at him with eyes so wide and searching that he wished he had for her an answer to the questions that she wished to ask.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sarah."

She nodded briefly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare," she said, still stricken with a sort of disbelief that held her in a stupor. Whatever she had done to this point had been actions of adrenaline and survival. Now, as the crisis had passed and Damien was away licking his wounds (briefly Gideon noticed that Jareth still clutched the fair sword in his hand, even as he went to stand beside Sarah, the free hand lingering near her arm, but careful not to touch it), Sarah could sink into a sort of shock.

Gideon came forward and, untying his parka, laid it across her thin shoulders. She felt barely there, so fragile and terrified. "I'll make tea for you to help your nerves once we're past this place. I'd do no work here, not anymore," he said and looked directly at Jareth. The dethroned king lowered his brilliantly blue eyes and finally sheathed the sword carefully away.

They walked slowly, Sarah a step or two ahead of the men. Gideon, at last, broke their silence as he turned to Jareth. "I suppose Gideon was unable to kill you, seeing you standing and breathing beside me as you are." Jareth nodded, and a faint grin even touched his mouth.

"I suppose you are right. But it was more a victory of ego. He will not be defeated again. I took him off guard and...," Jareth gestured at the young woman in front of him, walking silently, carefully. "...there was something else he didn't think to take into consideration."

"Have you told her anything yet?"

Jareth shook his head and toyed with the cuff of his shirt. "She hasn't spoken to me since she came. For all she knows I'm still the man who made her traverse the labyrinth for her baby brother those years ago. She'll have no idea of anything that has gone on since then." He lowered his face as they walked and again sunk into silence.

The horses were where they had left them, still standing placidly by the dark river and the rotted bridge. "Can she ride, is she in any condition?" Gideon asked under his breath.

Sarah coughed. She turned her head just enough to direct her next statement at the man who had spoken. "I don't know you, and I don't really care to find much out about you. All I need to know I can guess from the company with who you travel," she turned enough then to fix Jareth with a look that actually penetrated the unyielding fog. Then, lifting her shoulders beneath the fur Gideon had given her she said, "But, believe me, I am more than capable of taking care of myself. And, seeing as I'm kind of stuck here - or at least I'd assume as much- there is no need to worry about what I can or cannot do and what my condition might be."

Gideon couldn't help but smile as Sarah turned and touched one of the horses hesitantly. He glanced at Jareth, but the fair-haired man was caught in a silent quandary, or so his face betrayed. His jaw set and his face neutral, but Jareth's eyes betrayed his emotions. They were fair and soft and gentleness revealed itself at the corners of his fair features. Gideon swallowed. He remembered when he had looked at another in just that way.

He swallowed again. Emotions clogged his throat and he went to one of the horses without a word. And yet he was impressed with the girl, her defiance, the way she had lifted herself out of the state she had fallen into. He could see why she had made her way through the labyrinth, how she had bested the Goblin King in his own kingdom and why Jareth (again Gideon looked at the man he had called friend and king), loved her.


	9. Chapter 9

Into the Labyrinth. Imprisoned. Dawn.

The morning met them with humid and sticky air. Low clouds clung tenuously atop the walls of the Labyrinth, playing shadows over tall wheat grass at the feet of the three. They had stopped at the massive maze, looking into the first of many turns. While, of the three one had defeated the challenge of the labyrinth, one had lived most his adult life in Its wake and the final had ruled over it for ages unknown- none knew what was waiting just out of sight. Even the horses hesitated with their heads low and nostrils flared.

First thing in the morning Jareth had gathered the two horses from where they had bedded down for the night and saddled them without a word. He had waited until; at least, the sun had pinked the sky to wake his traveling companions. They had readied themselves hurriedly, feeling the need to be somewhere other than where they had slept. Jareth himself had been direct about their haste, especially once they mounted the horses to begin for the morning.

Then he had led them there, to the remains of a gate that had once stood guard to this way into the Labyrinth. Now it was buckled and toppled in on itself along with a large portion of the wall. They waited, breathing in the anticipation surrounding them.

"I need to know something before I go back into that thing," Sarah said. She sat on the back of Jareth's mount, her hands loosely cupping the cantle of the saddle and her thighs barely touching the edge of the king's jacket. He turned his head just so she saw one eye, half a cheek and the subtle curve of his lip. His expressions were not betrayed.

She cleared her throat. "I kinda get the idea I have something that man wants and that you two, well at least you," her comment had been directed towards Jareth, though Gideon did turn to look at her. "…are hiding a lot about this whole mess. I just want to know though, what the hell are we up against? I mean, if I go through there, face whatever he has waiting to stop us, and God knows what else, I should at least know what I'm in for."

Gideon averted his eyes towards the King who sat silent and straight in the saddle. This was one area the healer could not breach, at least not without Jareth's consent. IN the end it was truly the Goblin King's fight, they were bystanders caught in the line of fire. Gideon glanced again at the girl.

At last Jareth cleared his throat. "He's a mortal and he can die. Those who steal the gift of magic do not so easily inherit its treasures."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked cautiously. She had learned all too well the first time through that Jareth and the whole of the Labyrinth was quick to leave things ambiguous, especially when prodded. For the moment she remained unguarded, her contempt towards the man in front of her safely stowed away to the back of her mind.

"It usually chooses someone," Gideon interjected.

"If they are so lucky." Jareth bit the words out quickly, quieting Gideon and ending the dialogue between the healer and the girl. The horse shifted beneath the king and Sarah, taking a few lingering paces towards the entrance of the maze. A wind rushed between them and Sarah found herself nearer to the man in front of her than was comfortable. For a pregnant moment she stayed, and, her chest shuddering in breath once against his back, shook herself abruptly into a consciousness more fitting their situation.

Something was not being told to her again. But then, she had felt the breeze cold and icy against her skin in the humid morning and wondered who listened to them on the rush of air. "And what about you?" She inquired further, nudging Jareth with the side of one forearm.

"I was chosen from birth Sarah. Unlike Damien, I am no stranger to the Underground," he grew silent suddenly. There was a change in the timbre of his voice and his usually elegant accent slipped into a haggard exhalation. Sarah bookmarked the moment in her memory, filed under a time she would ask more about when he would answer.

"Now I think we speak to delay. Are you afraid, Sarah…. Why the concern for a place you conquered? What was it you said?" He paused a moment where he thought and then turned pointedly around in the saddle to stare directly into her momentarily shocked face. His eyes flashed and she could see herself reflected in the dark of his pupils. "It was a piece of cake."

She betrayed nervous laughter. "But why this way Jareth" Gideon asked from the side. Sarah, relieved to not be in so close proximity to Jareth and his eyes, gathered her composure.

"It's the straightest and safest of the trails to the Ivory Kingdom. And the only way Damien does not want us to take." The two were silent, confused, as the king spoke. The Labyrinth was washed in shadows more menacing by far than the open fields and forests of the lands surrounding. Clean air circled above them and, while warm and wet, was not the dreadfully still and stale atmosphere inside the walls of the maze.

Jareth sensed their unspoken question. "It's not a discussion. But, if you must know, the Labyrinth is fighting her bastard master. Damien knows, neither he nor his men can come inside these walls without facing what we face. It's a mystery to all now, but perhaps there is still a taste of me somewhere."

Jareth dismounted and Gideon, perplexed followed suit. Sarah hesitated a moment longer than the men but also slid from the horse. Jareth removed their bridles, tucking them away in his overstuffed pack. His companions began to voice questions, but he remained silent. The animals tarried, their heads high and nostrils flared when the bridles were loosed from their faces.

"The Labyrinth is no place for them. There is a greater power at work here. We'll find them on the other side," the dethroned king remarked and then lifted his arms suddenly at the horses. They turned, digging deep into the ground with quivering muscles and husky snorts. In a moment they were a blur in the early morning, disappearing behind trees and mist.

"If we ever see the other side," Sarah muttered as she exhaled the breath she held seeing their transport sink deeper and deeper into the forest.

Jareth shouldered his pack. The other two caught the sudden intake of air when it bounced once against his ribcage. Sarah opened her mouth, but clamped her teeth shut against the questions that arose. Right then all she could manage or handle was her dislike of the man who absently massaged his chest… anything else came much behind her desire to find a way home.

"Okay, well what are we waiting for? A magical clock, some glitter and illusions to get the games started?" Sarah enjoyed the way cold fire rose in Jareth's eyes as she brushed past him. In a moment she ducked beneath the collapsed metal doors, held askew by the massive pillars beside them. Then she was in the maze and a sticky silence enveloped her world.

There was cold stone under his cheek when he finally began the slow return to consciousness. Instead of the chiming and raining broken glass a single drip of water landed repeatedly near his face, echoing against the walls of his current location. Jake opened one eye, waited a moment and then opened the other. "What the-?"

Still lost in the disorientation of passing out, he couldn't remember how he had ended up in the dank and moldy room. But there was no denying his being there. His hand rested on the floor, wet and cold. It was too real to be anything but, and try as he might, he couldn't deny that he was there. Slowly, Jake sat up.

His head swam in a strange fog and the world shifted back and forth briefly as a wave of vertigo struck him squarely between his eyes. He pressed a hand to his clammy forehead and then began scanning his surroundings.

There was little to see other than four cobbled walls coated with green and gray molds and algae. Overhead the ceiling was interlaced with black wooden planks that dripped water along stringy trails of lichen. In one corner the lichen came to a bulbous end and, as he watched, a great round eye appeared in the middle of the darkness. "Shit!"

He jumped backwards, hitting the wall sharply. Briefly his vision blacked. By the time he looked again the eyed plant had slipped back into shadows and Jake wasn't even sure if it had been there at all to begin with. Suddenly things seemed like a nightmare, especially as his last memory before blacking out became crystal clear. Horror spread across his gray face like a wave.

"I hope the accommodations are to your liking," a voice whispered from somewhere in the darkest corner of the room. Jake watched, breathing deep and tasting fear like metal in his mouth.

"Who's there?"

The figure which stepped out could have been anyone, anywhere, seen on a street or in a shopping center… but in the middle of the dungeon-like room he was terrifying. His steps were slow and calculated and each footfall echoed like gunfire. Jake flinched noticeably. The stranger was tall and lithe and darkly clad with jet black hair and equally dark emotionless eyes.

"No one of importance to you," the man lifted one fine boned hand and examined his fingernails. Then, as though remembering his prisoner sitting on the ground in the small room, acknowledge Jake once more. "But, we do share a common interest in someone."

Jake straightened suddenly. Though he wasn't sure what the man was talking about, something in his gut whispered caution. "What are you talking about?" Jake's voice hitched a moment as he swallowed against a thickness in his throat.

"I'm sure you already know. It's of no interest to me or help to you if you act stupid, Jake," the man hissed. He approached a few more steps, arms crossed behind his back and a feral grin slung across his pale lips. "If you still don't know, take a look." He inclined his head to the left and Jake followed the motion quickly.

Standing just to the side was a full length mirror, hovering just above the ground and seemingly not strung up by anything. While at any other time he would have been taken aback by the sudden appearance of something that had not been there even a few seconds earlier, Jake was instead focused on that which was within the glassy surface.

"Sarah?" His lips spoke the words before his mind had completely registered the people he saw within the mirror. There were two men with her who he didn't recognize. Her companions were not obviously malicious, nor did she look trapped, hurt or scared. However, as he saw his girlfriend in company of people who were strange and new, traveling a land dark, dim and utterly surreal, Jake leapt to his feet and lunged at the mirror.

What had been solid became wisps of smoke between his outstretched fingers, and Sarah's face disappeared into the shadows surrounding him. Jake grasped desperately, but all too soon nothing remained. Desperate tears slipped into the corners of his eyes as he turned to take his misplaced aggression out on the man who had imprisoned him.

"I wouldn't do anything rash." The voice came from behind him and Jake turned again to see the man waiting, casually, where the mirror had stood. This time he remained frozen, hands gripped into tight and trembling fists.

"What did you do to her?" Jake whispered, his voice trembling in his eruption of emotion.

The man shrugged. "Nothing, yet. She's beyond where I can reach… at least for now. But, you see Jake, I don't really want her. I don't even want you. I want something she has, something she's carrying on her, and something that is rightfully mine." He twisted his hand and produced a single spherical crystal that glittered with golds and silver as he held it out at arm length. Jake watched, mesmerized.

"Then why… why not just ask? She must be scared and want to go… go home," Jake managed, watching the orb twist and spin on fingers that moved with a subtle sort of grace. There was a hypnotic appeal to the movements of the hand and the crystal.

"Of course. And I will send you back to your dreary, busy, dirty little lives above, without even a thought of this place and what happened here. Which is why I need you, Jake. You can convince her. You can take it from her." He laughed briefly, tossing the crystal over his shoulder where it struck the wall and erupted into a sudden splash of light.

Jake blinked, shook his head, and then looked around the room. His captor/visitor, was suddenly gone and Jake found himself alone in the twilight darkness. His head swum again, filled with questions and uncertainties. From within the haze of magic, Sarah's face became brightly clear and he remembered what the man had said while holding the tiny little sphere in hand. "I have to find her."

With the words a square of light poured in from one corner of the cramped room. Hesitant, the young man ventured towards the newest change in his strange encounters that day. Hopeful he breached the brightness and suddenly found clear, warm day washing a vast length of prairie like grass and stunted trees.

"Ok." His hand trailed on a final piece of black and rotted wood, and then he stepped onto the Underground.

Riding a cool easterly wind, fine and chilling laughter faded into a distant and greatly dark forest.

In a small cottage on the edge of the outermost wall of the Labyrinth, Lily sat on her rocking chair with a tattered throw across her legs. Her children were asleep still and her companions out cutting fire wood and fishing in the distant lake. The silence bathed her, calmed her and allowed her mind to wander towards the people she sensed now moving into a darkness she couldn't see past.

"What are you planning, Jareth? When will you talk to her? How long will you carry this on as though you can defeat the world all over again?" She whispered the words into the empty room.

There were too many things that the girl didn't know, and perhaps never would if Jareth had his way. However, the things she did not know went even beyond Damien and the downfall of the Underground. The mysteries went through decades and losses and destructions and a darkness of a past which Jareth had all too conveniently forgotten. The same past Lily relived every night when she closed her eyes and slept fitfully.

"Times will come, though, Jareth. Soon you won't be able to brush over these things." She feared that the time would arrive sooner than Jareth anticipated and hoped, and perhaps before he was able to understand or accept the truths in the past and present. Then the Goblin King would be tested not according to the strength of his sword and valor but to the strength of his character.

Lily sat and rocked, staring into a morning that would dawn on many new and different things.


	10. Chapter 10

Into the Labyrinth. Imprisoned. Dawn.

The morning met them with humid and sticky air. Low clouds clung tenuously atop the walls of the Labyrinth, playing shadows over tall wheat grass at the feet of the three. They had stopped at the massive maze, looking into the first of many turns. While, of the three one had defeated the challenge of the labyrinth, one had lived most his adult life in Its wake and the final had ruled over it for ages unknown- none knew what was waiting just out of sight. Even the horses hesitated with their heads low and nostrils flared.

First thing in the morning Jareth had gathered the two horses from where they had bedded down for the night and saddled them without a word. He had waited until; at least, the sun had pinked the sky to wake his traveling companions. They had readied themselves hurriedly, feeling the need to be somewhere other than where they had slept. Jareth himself had been direct about their haste, especially once they mounted the horses to begin for the morning.

Then he had led them there, to the remains of a gate that had once stood guard to this way into the Labyrinth. Now it was buckled and toppled in on itself along with a large portion of the wall. They waited, breathing in the anticipation surrounding them.

"I need to know something before I go back into that thing," Sarah said. She sat on the back of Jareth's mount, her hands loosely cupping the cantle of the saddle and her thighs barely touching the edge of the king's jacket. He turned his head just so she saw one eye, half a cheek and the subtle curve of his lip. His expressions were not betrayed.

She cleared her throat. "I kinda get the idea I have something that man wants and that you two, well at least you," her comment had been directed towards Jareth, though Gideon did turn to look at her. "…are hiding a lot about this whole mess. I just want to know though, what the hell are we up against? I mean, if I go through there, face whatever he has waiting to stop us, and God knows what else, I should at least know what I'm in for."

Gideon averted his eyes towards the King who sat silent and straight in the saddle. This was one area the healer could not breach, at least not without Jareth's consent. IN the end it was truly the Goblin King's fight, they were bystanders caught in the line of fire. Gideon glanced again at the girl.

At last Jareth cleared his throat. "He's a mortal and he can die. Those who steal the gift of magic do not so easily inherit its treasures."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked cautiously. She had learned all too well the first time through that Jareth and the whole of the Labyrinth was quick to leave things ambiguous, especially when prodded. For the moment she remained unguarded, her contempt towards the man in front of her safely stowed away to the back of her mind.

"It usually chooses someone," Gideon interjected.

"If they are so lucky." Jareth bit the words out quickly, quieting Gideon and ending the dialogue between the healer and the girl. The horse shifted beneath the king and Sarah, taking a few lingering paces towards the entrance of the maze. A wind rushed between them and Sarah found herself nearer to the man in front of her than was comfortable. For a pregnant moment she stayed, and, her chest shuddering in breath once against his back, shook herself abruptly into a consciousness more fitting their situation.

Something was not being told to her again. But then, she had felt the breeze cold and icy against her skin in the humid morning and wondered who listened to them on the rush of air. "And what about you?" She inquired further, nudging Jareth with the side of one forearm.

"I was chosen from birth Sarah. Unlike Damien, I am no stranger to the Underground," he grew silent suddenly. There was a change in the timbre of his voice and his usually elegant accent slipped into a haggard exhalation. Sarah bookmarked the moment in her memory, filed under a time she would ask more about when he would answer.

"Now I think we speak to delay. Are you afraid, Sarah…. Why the concern for a place you conquered? What was it you said?" He paused a moment where he thought and then turned pointedly around in the saddle to stare directly into her momentarily shocked face. His eyes flashed and she could see herself reflected in the dark of his pupils. "It was a piece of cake."

She betrayed nervous laughter. "But why this way Jareth" Gideon asked from the side. Sarah, relieved to not be in so close proximity to Jareth and his eyes, gathered her composure.

"It's the straightest and safest of the trails to the Ivory Kingdom. And the only way Damien does not want us to take." The two were silent, confused, as the king spoke. The Labyrinth was washed in shadows more menacing by far than the open fields and forests of the lands surrounding. Clean air circled above them and, while warm and wet, was not the dreadfully still and stale atmosphere inside the walls of the maze.

Jareth sensed their unspoken question. "It's not a discussion. But, if you must know, the Labyrinth is fighting her bastard master. Damien knows, neither he nor his men can come inside these walls without facing what we face. It's a mystery to all now, but perhaps there is still a taste of me somewhere."

Jareth dismounted and Gideon, perplexed followed suit. Sarah hesitated a moment longer than the men but also slid from the horse. Jareth removed their bridles, tucking them away in his overstuffed pack. His companions began to voice questions, but he remained silent. The animals tarried, their heads high and nostrils flared when the bridles were loosed from their faces.

"The Labyrinth is no place for them. There is a greater power at work here. We'll find them on the other side," the dethroned king remarked and then lifted his arms suddenly at the horses. They turned, digging deep into the ground with quivering muscles and husky snorts. In a moment they were a blur in the early morning, disappearing behind trees and mist.

"If we ever see the other side," Sarah muttered as she exhaled the breath she held seeing their transport sink deeper and deeper into the forest.

Jareth shouldered his pack. The other two caught the sudden intake of air when it bounced once against his ribcage. Sarah opened her mouth, but clamped her teeth shut against the questions that arose. Right then all she could manage or handle was her dislike of the man who absently massaged his chest… anything else came much behind her desire to find a way home.

"Okay, well what are we waiting for? A magical clock, some glitter and illusions to get the games started?" Sarah enjoyed the way cold fire rose in Jareth's eyes as she brushed past him. In a moment she ducked beneath the collapsed metal doors, held askew by the massive pillars beside them. Then she was in the maze and a sticky silence enveloped her world.

There was cold stone under his cheek when he finally began the slow return to consciousness. Instead of the chiming and raining broken glass a single drip of water landed repeatedly near his face, echoing against the walls of his current location. Jake opened one eye, waited a moment and then opened the other. "What the-?"

Still lost in the disorientation of passing out, he couldn't remember how he had ended up in the dank and moldy room. But there was no denying his being there. His hand rested on the floor, wet and cold. It was too real to be anything but, and try as he might, he couldn't deny that he was there. Slowly, Jake sat up.

His head swam in a strange fog and the world shifted back and forth briefly as a wave of vertigo struck him squarely between his eyes. He pressed a hand to his clammy forehead and then began scanning his surroundings.

There was little to see other than four cobbled walls coated with green and gray molds and algae. Overhead the ceiling was interlaced with black wooden planks that dripped water along stringy trails of lichen. In one corner the lichen came to a bulbous end and, as he watched, a great round eye appeared in the middle of the darkness. "Shit!"

He jumped backwards, hitting the wall sharply. Briefly his vision blacked. By the time he looked again the eyed plant had slipped back into shadows and Jake wasn't even sure if it had been there at all to begin with. Suddenly things seemed like a nightmare, especially as his last memory before blacking out became crystal clear. Horror spread across his gray face like a wave.

"I hope the accommodations are to your liking," a voice whispered from somewhere in the darkest corner of the room. Jake watched, breathing deep and tasting fear like metal in his mouth.

"Who's there?"

The figure which stepped out could have been anyone, anywhere, seen on a street or in a shopping center… but in the middle of the dungeon-like room he was terrifying. His steps were slow and calculated and each footfall echoed like gunfire. Jake flinched noticeably. The stranger was tall and lithe and darkly clad with jet black hair and equally dark emotionless eyes.

"No one of importance to you," the man lifted one fine boned hand and examined his fingernails. Then, as though remembering his prisoner sitting on the ground in the small room, acknowledge Jake once more. "But, we do share a common interest in someone."

Jake straightened suddenly. Though he wasn't sure what the man was talking about, something in his gut whispered caution. "What are you talking about?" Jake's voice hitched a moment as he swallowed against a thickness in his throat.

"I'm sure you already know. It's of no interest to me or help to you if you act stupid, Jake," the man hissed. He approached a few more steps, arms crossed behind his back and a feral grin slung across his pale lips. "If you still don't know, take a look." He inclined his head to the left and Jake followed the motion quickly.

Standing just to the side was a full length mirror, hovering just above the ground and seemingly not strung up by anything. While at any other time he would have been taken aback by the sudden appearance of something that had not been there even a few seconds earlier, Jake was instead focused on that which was within the glassy surface.

"Sarah?" His lips spoke the words before his mind had completely registered the people he saw within the mirror. There were two men with her who he didn't recognize. Her companions were not obviously malicious, nor did she look trapped, hurt or scared. However, as he saw his girlfriend in company of people who were strange and new, traveling a land dark, dim and utterly surreal, Jake leapt to his feet and lunged at the mirror.

What had been solid became wisps of smoke between his outstretched fingers, and Sarah's face disappeared into the shadows surrounding him. Jake grasped desperately, but all too soon nothing remained. Desperate tears slipped into the corners of his eyes as he turned to take his misplaced aggression out on the man who had imprisoned him.

"I wouldn't do anything rash." The voice came from behind him and Jake turned again to see the man waiting, casually, where the mirror had stood. This time he remained frozen, hands gripped into tight and trembling fists.

"What did you do to her?" Jake whispered, his voice trembling in his eruption of emotion.

The man shrugged. "Nothing, yet. She's beyond where I can reach… at least for now. But, you see Jake, I don't really want her. I don't even want you. I want something she has, something she's carrying on her, and something that is rightfully mine." He twisted his hand and produced a single spherical crystal that glittered with golds and silver as he held it out at arm length. Jake watched, mesmerized.

"Then why… why not just ask? She must be scared and want to go… go home," Jake managed, watching the orb twist and spin on fingers that moved with a subtle sort of grace. There was a hypnotic appeal to the movements of the hand and the crystal.

"Of course. And I will send you back to your dreary, busy, dirty little lives above, without even a thought of this place and what happened here. Which is why I need you, Jake. You can convince her. You can take it from her." He laughed briefly, tossing the crystal over his shoulder where it struck the wall and erupted into a sudden splash of light.

Jake blinked, shook his head, and then looked around the room. His captor/visitor, was suddenly gone and Jake found himself alone in the twilight darkness. His head swum again, filled with questions and uncertainties. From within the haze of magic, Sarah's face became brightly clear and he remembered what the man had said while holding the tiny little sphere in hand. "I have to find her."

With the words a square of light poured in from one corner of the cramped room. Hesitant, the young man ventured towards the newest change in his strange encounters that day. Hopeful he breached the brightness and suddenly found clear, warm day washing a vast length of prairie like grass and stunted trees.

"Ok." His hand trailed on a final piece of black and rotted wood, and then he stepped onto the Underground.

Riding a cool easterly wind, fine and chilling laughter faded into a distant and greatly dark forest.

In a small cottage on the edge of the outermost wall of the Labyrinth, Lily sat on her rocking chair with a tattered throw across her legs. Her children were asleep still and her companions out cutting fire wood and fishing in the distant lake. The silence bathed her, calmed her and allowed her mind to wander towards the people she sensed now moving into a darkness she couldn't see past.

"What are you planning, Jareth? When will you talk to her? How long will you carry this on as though you can defeat the world all over again?" She whispered the words into the empty room.

There were too many things that the girl didn't know, and perhaps never would if Jareth had his way. However, the things she did not know went even beyond Damien and the downfall of the Underground. The mysteries went through decades and losses and destructions and a darkness of a past which Jareth had all too conveniently forgotten. The same past Lily relived every night when she closed her eyes and slept fitfully.

"Times will come, though, Jareth. Soon you won't be able to brush over these things." She feared that the time would arrive sooner than Jareth anticipated and hoped, and perhaps before he was able to understand or accept the truths in the past and present. Then the Goblin King would be tested not according to the strength of his sword and valor but to the strength of his character.

Lily sat and rocked, staring into a morning that would dawn on many new and different things.


	11. Chapter 11

Spikers. A Deep Dark. Ivory Kingdom.

A desperate sort of resolve had fallen over the small group of travelers as they traversed passages and hallways that had crumbled and given way to disuse. A place that had once struck terror into children and had sent Sarah through hell, now was nothing more than hapless ruins. Sarah was startled to feel a sudden surge of disappointment and loss. She had only just begun to remember this place and now it was being slowly done away with.

It was strangely calm in the Labyrinth. Occasional gnats lit up in shafts of light that danced through cracks in the brick walls. There were doorways scattered here and there in dead ends and a few gaping holes that had once been covered with rotted wood in their path. Jareth had seamlessly led them past the few hiccups on their route, without a word. They didn't hesitate until the rubble appeared past a turn of the corridor. Jagged, sharp and abruptly rising well above the walls- the escarpment completely blocked their way.

Jareth glanced briefly at the sun overhead, appreciated the slant of shadows that were now passing their shortest point, and then kicked the debris with a metal tipped boot. Dust settled at the base of the impasse, but nothing else shifted. Somewhere deep beyond them hidden in a murky distance something groaned. "We go over," Jareth stated plainly.

Gideon, who had kept mostly to himself during the past several hours they travelled through the maze, choked out a dry laugh. Jareth didn't afford him even a glance as he rolled his shoulders beneath the simple tunic he wore. "You can, of course, stay here Gideon. However, even I would rather be beyond these walls come nightfall."

As if on cue a bird began a high-pitched trill unlike any Sarah had ever heard before. There was something unnatural about the shrill song and Sarah shivered. Shaking her head she took the first step onto the mountain of rubble, sliding a hand into a divot and hauled herself upwards several feet. She looked down at the men below her. "I would rather not find out the animal that can scream like that. Besides, I'm either completely insane at this point, stuck in my own delusion, or in mortal danger. This stupid mound of bricks is nothing."

Jareth and Gideon exchanged a glance. The healer noted a betrayal of pride hidden just below Jareth's carefully cloaked expression. But then they were all climbing slowly. Hands and feet searching for solid holds, caution as they scaled the rise and attempting to avoid the shifting of the bricks below them. Pebbles, dirt and large chunks of stone rained down to the ground below, striking pointed edges all the way down.

Sarah reached the summit first and glanced around her at the Labyrinth. From her point she noted bits of the maze that were so similar to what she had experienced before: the Bog out in the far left corner (thankfully in the wrong direction their path had been taking), a tip of garbage peeking out from grey mist dead ahead and firelight burning somewhere close by where trees appeared over the walls. She heard the men behind her, felt them pulling themselves up to where she was. However, she couldn't make herself move.

"All that money on therapy," she mused silently. Her mind refused to process anymore. Whatever defense mechanism had propelled her so far wavered and fell from her psyche as she looked at the Labyrinth and the lands beyond. She was torn between denial of this fantastical place and accepting the details she saw and stagnant air with a trace of putrid bog she smelled. In that battle Sarah was frozen when the men came upon her.

She didn't hear Jareth, nor Gideon as they whispered and finally shouted to move on. Sarah's hands went to her ears, drowning out sounds that suddenly were very distant. The attack at the apartment, being forced into this place, coming face to face with a man who haunted her nightmares so many years and Jake…. JAKE! Sarah let out a little sob. In that moment of somewhat solitude she felt a surge of pain fill her chest. He was gone.

"Sarah!" Jareth bellowed and grabbed her elbow, meaning only to pull her hands away from her ears. But the movement took the suddenly slumping woman by surprise and as she tensed in response to Jareth's frustration, her foot slipped. Everything she had begun to doubt came back in a sparkling reality too bright for her eyes as she toppled backwards and collided with a brutal corner of brick that dug directly into the small of her back.

She didn't even have time to call out as her fingers clawed to find purchase in a surface that eroded beneath her. What had seemed stable now slid into a brick and mortar avalanche, propelling her down. Jareth above her desperately scaled downwards, sliding his booted feet along the shifted mound with innate grace, grasping for her hands and arms but instead ripping away the fabric of her sleeves. Her voice, that had been lost, tore out of her throat in a wretched scream.

And then she stopped. Her heels hit solid ground abruptly ending her decline, but also cart wheeling her backwards into open air. For a moment Sarah saw the men grabbing for her, too far by several feet to reach, and then they were gone- replaced by solid brick of a wall upon which she had fallen and hurtled past.

She could only barely think about impact before she landed with a thud that whooshed the air out of her lungs and made her vision swim into black. The ground beneath her was soft, like a damp springy cushion. Her throat burned as she gasped air into her empty chest and the world slowly filled in again. First greens of the ground, and then bright marks of multi-colored flowers, and brilliant sunshine followed by the blue of the sky overhead.

"Shit." She turned to her side, groaning at a body that was double the age it had been when first she faced the physical trials of this place, and then spat into the grass. Blood mixed with the saliva and tasted coppery in her mouth. She wondered briefly if she has lost a tooth. It was only then that she realized the desperate voices calling down to her where not only in her head.

Wearily Sarah sat up, uncomfortable and nauseated by the vertigo that hit her in ebb and flow. She looked up, startled to see doubles of her traveling companions and then rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. Vaguely she understood they were forming words, but they sounded just like buzzing noises as she fought herself back into consciousness. "Give me a second," her voice was breathless, barely over a whisper. Sarah winced a she made her way to a knee, grimaced at a sharp gnawing pain in her back and then focused on the men again.

They were pointing at something, not her, she noticed. Her vision swam to black again for a moment when she turned her head too quickly. Jareth's expression, bright white fear, forced her to a more alert state of consciousness. Then she heard the word that he was yelling over and over. "Spikers…Spikers…"

The thing that rolled across the otherwise picturesque meadow was covered in rusted tin armor plates and it was coming fast. With each roll she saw, glinting in the sunlight, the things that must have given the creature it's name. Brilliantly sharp foot-long spikes that extruded and retracted with each rotation, as though reaching out to her. The smell that came in its wake was like rotting meat and burnt oil. Sarah knelt, transfixed, aware that two men were screaming bloody murder above her, but unable to respond.

The vicious thing made the Cleaners look tame. It was gaining ground and momentum with each rattling turn it took. Crushing purple, pink and yellow flowers, driving thick ruts into grass and down to dirt, sending bits of plants in a wake like a wave behind it. Her vision became acutely precise, watching the thing come upon her. She saw one spike, broken in half and stuck permanently at an angle, noted a fine line of liquid shining on its metal body, and caught a glimpse of a writhing green worm skewered on the end of one massive spike. For all her attention to detail, Sarah could not make herself move. Nothing the men above her said or did even breached the silence that had fallen over her ears. She watched, transfixed, horrified and fascinated.

Nearing with each breath…. Now twenty yards, ten, fifteen and racing ever faster. Sarah drew in a sharp intake of air, almost tasting the old metal that was sizzling beneath the midday sun. "This is it," her mind spoke in that catatonic trance.

Then it happened. The air behind her face buzzed like an angry hornet, splitting a portion of her hair, raking a sharp fire over her cheek, and then echoed to her left with a hallow thud. Her hand moved to her face in the sudden pain and she managed to avert her eyes to the ground where a jagged rock had embedded itself. Another flew past her to the right, just barely missing her shoulder and sinking into the ground by her knee. They were throwing them at her. There was no time for surprise. The thing had covered nearly the last bit of distance as she was startled out of her trance.

Sarah pounced to the side at the last moment, feeling one reaching spike catch in her jeans, ripping and dragging her backwards so she fell abruptly. The momentum of the Spiker sent it well past her. Far enough that she had a moment to gain her feet beneath her and race through the expanse of the meadow. It was making terrible clicking sounds, adjusting its course, and then the whirring noise of it revving up behind her.

Strangely the noise surrounded her. Sarah hesitated a moment, daring a look back to Jareth and Gideon and the torture device that had sighted her and was bearing down again. The hesitation became a complete pause as her eyes caught the reason behind the harmony of mechanical sounds. "Shit." She whispered again.

There were more, rolling in from every open corridor that surrounded the seemingly innocent meadow. Five at least, and they were coming quick. Sarah turned again, missing the desperate gestures from the men on the rubble mountain, and ran.

Jareth bent over, sucking in air as he watched Sarah disappear past a rise of the ground, the Spikers soon following suit. "I'm going after her!"

He made to leap for the wall. Gideon, catching his balance, reached for Jareth just as the unsteady mount beneath them began to shift. Thrown off balance, Jareth caught the lip of the wall with his fingertips, slammed full body into its unforgiving surface and then collapsed down into thick hedges as the view of the meadow was stolen away. Gideon was taking quick leaps down the other side of the heap, as it first rolled left, then right, then imploded as the men distanced themselves from the cloud of dust that followed.

The Goblin King roared, beat his fists on the wall of the damn deceitful maze and then salvaged his pack from the ground. "If you fall behind I will not wait for you." Jareth's eyes flashed a dangerous warning that Gideon immediately both feared and hated. Not for the first time the healer despised this man beside him. Bile drenched words formed behind Gideon's lips, but Jareth had already taken up a brisk jog.

"I should never have followed you, Jareth."

But he did, again. Someday, Gideon hoped, he would be able to turn the other way. Despite a history of loss and pain that met Gideon in the shadow of this fallen king, he continued ever in his service. Memory of the loss fell upon him with each step he took after Jareth, and the faster he ran the more quickly the images followed: His home, his freedom, his safety, his life's work… his family.

Washed in a spell of deep sadness, Gideon did not see that Jareth had come to a stop. He did not see the brilliant gold gates, so foreign in a world of rock and bricks and tarnished metal, that had opened to a deep darkness. Gideon did not hear the sounds of ticking, like a hundred clocks keeping discordant time. He did, however, feel Jareth's hand seal over his arm, yanking backwards until his shoulder popped.

Perhaps he would have been safe, had he not lurched forward, one last step, in pain. The ground beneath him, if there really had been any in that complete darkness that stood beyond those golden gates, simply fell away. Even the strength of Jareth's grip could not stop his descent and Gideon's arm slipped right through Jareth's hand- and he was gone.

"No!" Jareth yelled, leaning in just enough to look into the black of the pit. He stood upright, looking long in the direction he felt Sarah must have run. He still sensed her, somehow, a brilliant white light in the center of so much gray. Every bit of his being pulled him to her. His muscles trembling, actually forced him three steps from the gates before his mind clicked and he lowered his head.

The girl was strong. Stronger than she knew. Again he tried to see past the walls and distance to where she fought for her own life. He couldn't go to her. His mind knew, even if his body wouldn't accept it. Forcibly, he turned again, the darkness a complete creature of its own. Gideon would not bode so well in this place so devoid of light and life, the hallmarks of his existence prior to Jareth's intervention.

Step after step he expected the same drop to which Gideon had fallen victim. He tightened the grip on his pack, going deeper than expected into the nothing. Just when Jareth feared the pit had sealed, his heel met nothing and he fell, head first, into empty oblivion.

In the murky afternoon sky, a haze of clouds were stagnant. Not a breath of wind whispered in the cornflower blue of the Underground heavens. But a bird did. Brilliantly white in the otherwise dismal day, the bird's shadow would have fallen across the Labyrinth, spilled beside the bone-white spire of the castle at its center, and moved past.

The little dove flew, riding currents of hot air as it watched a massive expanse of water- dark and still- pass beneath it. This lake stretched so far and wide, it was like an ocean cutting deep through the Underground. Still the bird flew, a coil of paper fluttering beneath the band that had secured it to its delicate leg. It drug at the dove, pulling it down, forcing it to beat its wings furiously as the sun made heat waves all around.

Then, as the bird felt its wings weaken and resolve sink, the sickly water and barren grasslands below ended abruptly at the mountains. She shifted herself upwards again, having dropped so low with exhaustion and fatigue, to reach that which had been her goal all along- the Ivory Kingdom.

A turret of the brilliant gold and ivory castle rose up in his flight path. The perfect structure broken only by narrow slits that led within. She eased within the one to which she had been sent and came to rest at last.

An old man sat in the chambers the bird had found. He wore a magnificent clothes and a bejeweled crown on his head. In his hand was a perfectly round crystal that he spun back and forth, watching light pass through its surface and reflect back a thousand times on the wall like little rainbows. His face was drawn, his eyes dull and so many years lined his skin and bowed his once strong shoulders and back. At the door where four armed guards, watching in silence.

"What's this?" One questioned, as the bird was at last found out spying on the aged king.

This made the man lay the crystal back into a golden box and lock it with a key he wore around his neck. He turned abruptly, startled in brief but overall resolved. The guard moved quickly to the small window, cupping his hands out as though to scoop the dove up. She watched, turning her head so one glinting black eye fixed the man in a solid stare. This gave his hands pause enough that she beat her wings again and lifted to the ceiling and rafters above.

All the men watched below as she wove between the wooden beams and then dipped to the desk at which the king sat. He was a noble man, even the bird appreciated as much. If she could have bowed she would have, watching him as he watched her.

The man seemed as though he was beyond surprise. He did, however, see the scrap of parchment wrapped tight around her leg and he loosed the band to retrieve the little note. The bird did not move. She watched and waited patiently.

"Sire, it could be a trap from…."

The king lifted his hand and the other man fell abruptly silent with a snap as his teeth closed on each other. "A Dove would not do the biddings of an evil man," the king replied simply as he opened the note.

Moments passed as he read. The guards were on high alert, attentive to minute changes in the way the king sat, a breath that passed his lips, and a subtle deepening of the lines in his forehead as his eyebrows knit together. At last his hand holding the paper collapsed into his lap and he fixed the bird in a sad and wearisome gaze.

"All is not lost."

The men did not speak, but their attention had been piqued. The King looked at them and then, tensing the thin muscles in his aged arms, rose from the chair. The attendants lowered their heads in respect. "My son is coming. He brings a guest… someone who could save us all," the cryptic words made one soldier, the one who had first approached the bird, life his head.

"How can they know? Did Jareth send the Dove? We had been given notice of his death, sire…"

The king still held the note tight in his hand. He adjusted his robes as the men made to move beside him. The only answer was a weak shake of the king's head. He then looked to the Dove again, almost admiring the small white bird. He made to touch it's snowy feathers, but the bird jumped just out of reach. A look of deep and painful regret painted the King's face in shadow. He turned away from the bird and at last handed the note to the head of his guards.

"Perhaps we were misinformed," the king stated plainly, "for who would know better the state of the Goblin King's mind than his sister?"

Silence fell again. The guard gripped the note so tight it crumpled in his hand. The king either did not see or did not care. He muttered an order that the castle was to prepare for his son's arrival, before taking leave.

Concern washed over the one guard as he tarried in the chambers. The kingdom as in crisis, all of the Underground for that matter. It was not the time for a long lost son to return for a reunion with his father. But if what the king said was true…. The guard stopped his thoughts and slowly opened his clenched hand.

He unfolded the parchment, turning it to read what had been intended for his king.

_Jareth lives, as I had told you, father._

_He has the girl, though he did not bring her here. That which we had feared for these many years is true. He lost the gift that had chosen him as a child and, with the crystal gone as well, Jareth is mortal. The girl knows nothing, has likely forgotten much more. They will reach you, I saw it in my dreams._

_It is our last hope, that she will remember and that he can make her believe. Jareth must tell her everything… or we are lost._

_With my love,_

_Lily._


	12. Chapter 12

Another Quest. Zazzle. In the Dark.

Jake couldn't remember how long he'd been walking. Day and nights blended together in some form of a twilight or dusk that muted the passage of time. He did know, however, that he had to keep moving. The beast who had taken him here had made it infinitely clear that he had to find Sarah. His life, and more importantly, hers, depended on this task.

Not that it had been all hiking and walking. The days had been humid, slicking the clothes on his back against his wet skin. The nights had whistled with a startling cold wind that would have been heaven-sent in the day. He was utterly miserable, and no change of weather or sweltering task could minimize that which made him the most lost: Sarah.

He thought about her constantly, like the repetition of her face in his mind was a mantra driving his feet forward. In each snapshot she was suffering in some new way, and it wrung his heart tighter in the vice which constantly gripped it since he came to this place. He saw her locked, starved and shivering, behind metal bars. Then she was tethered to a thick tree, a beast like the one he had seen, slowly stalking her. And last she was holding to the very edge of cliff as the rocks slowly slipped away beneath her fingers.

Jake let out a breath and, forcing himself instead to count to ten, drove the images away for a moment. He paused, digging the tattered parchment with the rudimentary map etched on its yellow surface from his pack, and reviewing it again for the hundredth time. The sun overhead was brutal and baking through his white T-shirt.

There was a clear "X" where the kidnapper had indicated Jake's destination. It laid beyond the expanse of forest drawn in swirling foliage, and the twists and turns describing some massive maze and lastly a huge circle of water. It was a kingdom, a great kingdom. Not for the first time Jake felt that he was stuck in some stupid fairytale and would give anything to get out of it.

He realized, tucking the map back into a pocket and taking a drink from his water pouch, that he had just reached the summit of a slowly sloping hill. Looking down, the forest seemed to fade into rough grasslands. The grass itself ended at something else entirely. Something both out of place and completely perfect in this otherwise disjointed reality.

"So there it is," he stated, grateful to hear his voice. It made everything just a little easier to accept knowing that he was still himself.

A maze… no a Labyrinth… in such enormity that it made him almost long to see it closer, touch it, brave its unnerving threshold. However, the darkness that clung to its outer walls, visible even from such a great distance, convinced him that this place was someplace to avoid at all costs. Jake let out a breath that he had not realized he had been holding up to that point. Forcing himself to turn away, he kept walking.

The Ivory kingdom. That was what the terrible man had called it, and, supposedly, that was where he would find Sarah. That place lay far past this horrible and awesome maze. He could reach it by forging through or going around. Dealing with everything else that was already on his plate was enough for a thousand lifetimes. Jake turned just slightly to his right and started down the subtle slope.

"Sarah," he whispered her name.

He could almost imagine her right beside him, sharing his space. He stopped again, glanced back at the maze and felt something. Almost heard a sound that could only be her. He held his breath again and listened closer, but only silence and a spooky almost human bird call broke the otherwise quiet mid-morning. With a sigh he turned and walked. Sure that Sarah was waiting for him to take her home in that other place beyond the great lake.

Hopefully….

* * *

><p><strong>She slid around<strong> another corner and had a moment where she thought that her feet would keep going in one direction and herself in another. Sarah managed to regain her balance, with the metallic churning noises ever nearer, just a half step away from her. She heard them skittering around the corner she just tripped at. Too close.

Each breath burned into her lungs like icy fire, no salvation in the oxygen she sucked in. Her chest shuddered, brilliant white stingers digging like electric bolts in her sides with each thundering step she took away from certain death. Her muscles felt both like dead lumps of meat and engorged, throbbing points of agony at the same time. But still she ran, despite her body's protestations. What followed only a heartbeat behind was too terrifying to make her stop for any reason short of collapse.

The realization that she couldn't go on forever was starting to blare like a foghorn behind the tight crown of pain encircling her head. If she couldn't lose them soon then her body, much older than when she last fought her way to and beyond Jareth, would simply give up. Sarah leapt a drop in the ground where a door stood open and the very top rung of ladder hung out in her path.

For a moment hope stole over her and she dared one of the only glances back at the rolling beast. It rolled right over the inconvenience, shattering the ladder into splinters and any hope she had dared at the same time. "Damnit, why won't they stop?" her mind begged.

Again Sarah came to a trifurcation in her path. She didn't hesitate, but also didn't register which direction she chose or the difference between the other two options she had passed by. The walls stretched on as far as she could see. No break, no turn, no end… and without any deviation in the trail those things would overcome her in a matter of minutes. Already they were just behind her heels, she felt the warmth of the machinery against her skin.

"HELP!" She tried again to call for the others. She had given up on them, though, it had been too long. She fought to go faster. Made herself forget the pain and the cramping, the oxygen debt that was sinking deeper and deeper in her brain making everything around her too bright, swaying in and out of focus and sparkling like fireworks going off behind her. She focused instead on one thing: Survive.

Where was Hoggle when she needed him.

Then she saw it. About a hundred feet ahead of her. A single tree with thick branches draped over the passage she was running through. It was looped with vines nearly as thick that hung low enough that she thought, in her bleary and exhausted mind, she could reach them if she jumped and be far enough up to swing above her attackers.

With a chance in sight, she found new strength in her flagging spirit. Sarah forced her legs faster, her arms swinging desperately to gain ground. Behind her the things began to make a sick sucking and clacking and pinging sound- as though they knew what she had seen and understood they needed to reach her. That was when it came out from the wall. Another Spiker, clicking it's massive skewers in and out of its rusted metallic plates as it slowly rolled out from nowhere.

_No, not nowhere… because things are never how they seem._ Sarah realized how naïve she had been. The endless tunnel was full of secret side passages- she had just been too terrified and focused on the Spikers to see them. The one in front of her was starting forward, but still beyond her tree. If she could just cover the last yards…

From behind there was pressure against her heels, then a brilliant white searing pain erupted in her calf and Sarah lurched forward as terror billowed up inside her chest. She didn't have to look to know the Spiker behind her had struck. She felt woozy, swimming forward, clawing with her hands into air as thick as murky water. The tree bent forward and backward as her vision exploded in black and white dots.

_No, I refuse to pass out!_ Sarah clacked her teeth together, biting her tongue until blood filled her mouth- tasting like the smell of the terrible thing at her feet. With a final clarity, where she saw the beasts, her tree, the maze in perfect detail, Sarah leapt for the branch and vine and swung her legs up and out of danger. The vine she grabbed felt fluid, surreal. She wondered if it was her mind trying to lose consciousness again or something else entirely. It tightened over her wrists, seeming to lift her even higher as she grabbed the branch, secured herself and somehow managed to loop her legs over until she straddled and hug the limb with trembling arms and legs. The vine beneath her was warm.

The Spikers weren't as intelligent as she made them out to be in her frantic fear. They tumbled on at full speed when she disappeared and the two collided in a fantastic heap of metal, broken spikes, and spilled black liquid- then it was silent. She laid her cheek upon the branch and, before she even knew it was coming, tears began pouring from her eyes and sobs erupted from her open and panting mouth.

She knew there were more. There had been at least five in the meadow. But for then Sarah couldn't hear their metallic clicks and mechanic growls and the two beneath her were just bits of metal and refuse. Everything poured out of her. "I hate this place!" She warbled between gut-cramping sobs.

Sarah was aware that the vine had moved beneath her body, but exhaustion, emotion and desperation fogged her reaction or response to it. She didn't even sense the eyes looking at her as they materialized from seemingly nothing. She did hear the voice, however, and would have fallen if she had enough energy to be startled.

"Don't cry young woman," the voice purred.

Sarah hiccupped, staunched the fresh tears and swallowed back her devastated cries as she quickly shifted her eyes towards the voice. The creature was about the size of large housecat and had springy/curly hair- like a sheep. It had delicate feet and stood on all fours as it assessed her. Its eyes were brilliant gold and glittering and the face she looked at was feline in quality with a foxy nose ad half drooped ears. Sarah nearly felt at ease looking at this fuzzy, fluffy creature, until it grinned and needle-tipped teeth appeared behind its jowls.

"Just kill me know, no talking. I can't move, much less run. I surrender," Sarah stated calmly, lowering her head again to await her inevitable demise.

Then the creature started laughing. It was musical and lovely and made Sarah again assess this strange companion. It took a couple careful steps forward and a short stub of a tail wiggled from side to side. "I jussst sssaved you from those Ssspikers, why kill you now?" it asked, the "S" In most words drawn out like a snake's hiss. Sarah could smell a gentle musk on its haircoat and immediately felt at ease again.

"Sorry, " she commented, "I'm so used to things trying to do away with me or stop me in this place. I never know what to expect. You have to admit, those teeth are striking!"

The cat-like creature ruffled its hair with a all over body shake and laughed again. "Not bad for you, but terrifying for fairiessss and crabbitsssss. I'm Zazzle, a huntresssss….. and friend."

Sarah inched her arm off the security of the branch to reach out for Zazzle. The creature laid its delicate paw into Sarah's palm and smiled that unnerving toothy grin again. "Fairies, huh?" Sarah asked, remember the beautiful but nasty things she saw at the entrance of the Labyrinth so many years ago.

"Pessstsss," Zazzle responded.

It was then that Sarah realized she no longer was atop the thick vine that had looped over this tree. What Zazzle had said a moment earlier rung through her head again. "Wait, did you?" she pointed at the branch and looked back at the feral feline, "Were you something else a moment ago?"

"Sssarah, nothing here isss as it seemsssss," Zazzle winked and then gracefully leapt down amid the wreckage of the Spikers.

Ignoring her recent line of thought, Sarah shifted on the branch. Her legs, back, arms, neck all flared with new aching pains. Every muscle cramped and tight as she tried to shimmy her way down the tree. Just as her feet struck the ground a startling voice filled the new-found silence. Sarah, immediately alert, watched a flock of bright purple and black birds take wing in a flurry of feathers.

The voice yelled out again, a wretched cry. There was no mistaking the voice, though. Sarah, for better or worse, could recognize the Goblin King anywhere.

* * *

><p><strong>Jareth fell into<strong> blackness for what seemed an eternity. With sensory deprivation his mind was free to wander and imagine any number of gruesome ends Sarah might have met at the mercy of the Spikers. It was a particularly sadistic torture device he had created in a time when life and love had not mattered. Revenge had burned his heart into black coal and he had forged countless demonic half-breeds or the soul purpose of violent killing.

He thought they had long ago rusted into oblivion. They hadn't been seen roaming the Labyrinth for decades. And yet, in a heartbeat, they were back and chasing the only being who had ever brought him a moment of happiness. Jareth, enraged, roared in protest to the endless drop into desolation. There seemed to be no end.

It was just another trick. He knew that. Made to drive subjects mad as they quested through the turns of the dark maze. The seemingly constant downward spiral into a black oblivion nearly unnerved him, but he knew the secrets. The Labyrinth would not trick her master- whether he was banished or not.

The ground came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Jareth hit solidly, exhaled and laid still. The surrounding space was still ultimately black. It would take time. He listened, as a vague light began to fill corners in the room. Jareth heard breathing nearby, but no movement. Gideon must have understood the same patience that was needed to defeat this most recent test.

Slowly the faint light trickled over a cobbled ground. It danced atop stone hands and arms that laid in fragments around the Goblin King. Marble fingers, granite wrists, and an entire obsidian hand devoid of a thumb; they all laid scattered like the aftermath of a bloody battle. Jareth considered them briefly. He stopped as he noted light basking on his healer and one-time friend's chest.

Gideon's chest rose and fell in rhythmic breaths. His eyes flicked back and forth, assessing the deep darkness of the tunnel above them, from which they had fallen. Finally, with a low sigh, the healer eased himself up. Gideon winced in a moment of sudden pain and rubbed the back of his head. He took in their surroundings slowly, deliberately. After an unnerving minute of protracted silence Gideon asked: "What is this place."

He had known Jareth was there, because he spoke without looking at the other man. Gideon made no other movements, waiting for a response. Jareth, hating the way Gideon's jaw had tensed in anticipation of what the Goblin King would say, could not hide the bite of contempt and anger beneath his words.

"You know Sarah was not the first, Gideon. What do you think becomes of those wanton souls who cannot defeat my Labyrinth?" Jareth asked, pausing for a reply from Gideon, but knowing that the healer would not breach the subject. "I put them here. Forever stuck in walls. Doomed to see each new challenger fall again and again. But I assure you, I was not the one who made them stone. The Underground is changing, not for the better. I told you that she did not choose Damien… and she will not be calm in his clutches."

"Sometimes Jareth," Gideon did turn to look at Jareth at this and his violet eyes narrowed with poorly concealed disappointment, "I hate you."

The Goblin King shrugged and rose quickly. His mouth a thin line and face expressionless. He would not betray a reaction to the words his only friend spoke. But then, it had been ages since he could truly call him friend. Gideon stammered, also rising, but finally became quiet. There was nothing else to say between them. They scoured the ground and found their packs, collecting a few items that had come loose. Jareth took a swallow of water as he assessed the small dungeon.

Four brick walls and a cobbled ground. Above was an inaccessible tunnel where hundreds of his prisoners had once been entombed. Now they were shattered on the ground. In one corner of the room was a square window filled with wrought iron bars and inset in one wall was a shelf and a box just slightly bigger than one used to hold engagement rings. Jareth quickly approached the shelf.

"No way out?" Gideon asked. Jareth ignored him. "What's in the box?"

The Goblin King looked once at his companion and picked up the box. He turned, snapped open the lid and held it out at arm's length. "Nothing."

"So there really is no way out, then."

"You exhaust me with your optimism, Gideon. The Labyrinth and I are not unsolvable. Such was never the intention of this place. Every place has a secret. Secrets keep us sane and perhaps make us keep going," Jareth looked at Gideon for a long time. Between the two a lifetime of memories, battles, loss and despair broke free. Yes, there were secrets- those they kept from themselves less they really reveal raw emotions so long hidden.

In his mind Gideon saw a woman, young and beautiful with a smiling face and bright blue eyes who he held in his arm. He saw a child, swaddled in a delicate cloth and sleeping in a wooden cradle- a gift. He saw a door explode in pieces and the woman ripped from his arms in a night more dark even that the dungeon where they were caught. He felt tears swim in his eyes and he blinked, turned and walked briskly to the barred window. "Go ahead, then. I want this done."

Jareth's hand loosened and the box fell to the ground, clattering in the otherwise soundless cell. In that moment Jareth felt, not for the first time, that it would have been better had Gideon let him die beside his castle in that tumultuous night. Such had not been his destiny. His gaze low, spirit lower, Jareth laid a hand on the shelf, feeling smooth and ageless wood on his palm, and pushed down.

Creaking and grinding of levers, cogs and pulleys began immediately. There was a loud pop and then, as Gideon watched, wiping the single tear that had smeared his cheek away, the wall sunk into the ground. A wide stone staircase stood in the wake of what had been a brick wall.

"Come on then." Jareth led the way towards the faintest trace of sunlight from the top of the many countless stairs.


	13. Chapter 13

Sleeping Sickness. Out of the Labyrinth. Lost.

Sarah had learned, or more accurately remembered, that when things began to seem too easy- they generally were. The trip towards where she heard the howl of the Goblin King had been uneventful and almost pleasant. Zazzle entertained her by transformed into various Labyrinthine inhabitants, one after another, and broke only to exchange surprisingly intelligent conversation. Their route held memories of challenges and sidetracks. They stepped over bits of burned hedge where goblin guards' spears laid in a heap. The two passed limp vines that draped like curtains through their path and Zazzle explained how they once snared wanton travelers in quick traps. Sarah only hesitated a moment as a fly, with a scent of fetid bog in its wake, drifted past her shoulder.

Despite these old reminders, and the incident with the Spikers, the Labyrinth was quiet, calm and sadly falling apart. "Have most of your friends and family left?" Sarah asked Zazzle, as she ducked beneath another loop of orange vine. She was cautious not to touch it, despite Zazzle's assurance that they were long dead.

"Where elsssse would we go?" Zazzle asked, flicking her green-gold eyes towards Sarah. The woman thought she noted a trace of sadness and loss behind those feral cat eyes. Just as quickly it was gone and Zazzle had become a lumbering mix of something that looked like a hippopotamus and a turtle. "Bessssidessss, they aren't many of ussss left. Mossst of my friendssss are dead."

She spoke the words nonchalantly, but this time Sarah easily saw how Zazzle's eyes became too glittery and veiled with tears. Sarah laid a hand on her friend's back as Zazzle returned to her native shape. Sarah focused on changing the conversation. "Have you ever been to the castle, met the Goblin King?" A low growl followed Sarah's question.

"Yesssss, once, when I wasss just a cub," Zazzle's response was still low and throaty, like a threat. Sarah sat up against a severed tree stump and sighed deeply. Her leg was sticky with blood and fighting through the pain had become unmanageable- she needed a rest. Zazzle turned back around, "Did I offend you?"

"Oh no, " Sarah waved off the comment with a brisk shake of her head. She stretched her leg out, wincing once at the pain and then lowered her head down between her legs. "I'd probably growl too, talking about the last time I met Jareth." There was a sort of electrical hum in the air around them, like a light bulb beginning to dim and eventually die. Sarah lifted her face to the sky, a brilliant blue in the late afternoon, but saw no electrical source above them.

Zazzle was preening her springy fur with a tiny and perfect pink tongue. She acknowledged the woman carefully, pausing in mid-groom. "Why did you leave, Sssarah? Why did you defeat him, only to leave ussss still under hisss rule?"

Sarah had just pinpointed the source of the humming when the question struck her. A laugh escaped her before she could manage to stifle it back down. The question was preposterous. Of course she had left. What was there for her in the Underground? A flash of Jareth's face consumed her mind for scarcely a second, long enough that she couldn't deny it had been there. Short enough that she could excuse it for a side-effect of pain and exhaustion. However, unease had since blanketed her and she shook her head to force herself back to the present. "I couldn't stay here! And be his slave? How could you ask that?" The anger in her voice glowed brilliantly, just like the blush that had crept across her face.

Zazzle now lowered her face. "No, no, no!" She jumped atop Sarah's lap, butting the top of her head against Sarah's chest like a housecat. "You misssunderstand! Of courssse not ssslave…. Queen."

"What?"

The humming was becoming louder. Like living in some kind of electricity plant or standing beside a live wire. In fact, this whole trip made her think a false step would lead Sarah into unbridled and free electricity. Her heart thrummed hard against her chest. _Had Zazzle just really said Queen?_ It was hard to concentrate with the unnerving, grating, grinding sizzle of current in the air.

"Don't you know? Didn't they tell you anything?" Zazzle's hair bristled on end and she briefly looked twice her size.

Sarah scarcely heard. "What is that sound?"

Zazzle circled on Sarah's lap, a glimpse of her fine-pointed teeth showing as she hissed. Sarah looked down again, briefly regaining concentration from the noise. "You jussst left without learning? How could you not feel it every day, everywhere? Sssurely you felt sssomething?" Zazzle punctuated her questions with pinpricks of her needling claws.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Zazzle. I needed to get out of here so I could grow up. SO I could make something of myself. So that I could manage to live a life outside of fantasy and make-believe," Sarah shrugged her shoulders in callous acceptance. "Look at where it got me though? All those years of convincing that you and him and this whole place," she stabbed her hand into the air and swung around in a half arc, "…Wasn't real….. Now I'm back.

Sarah stood suddenly, unseating the cattish creature from her lap. Zazzle landed with ease, fervently licked the middle of her back and fixed Sarah with the most human of eyes she had yet seen. "Of courssse you're back child! The Underground never let you go. It'ssss sad. You worked sssso hard to forget that you missssed it all."

Zazzle began walking again on all fours. Her little nub of a tail swayed from one side to the other and her head sunk below her shoulder blades. Sarah watched, wishing she could take something back. The truth was the truth, though. She couldn't save everyone, couldn't be the heroine the time in the Labyrinth somehow made her be. For better or worse, her life of normalcy had been snatched away. She was left with this place. What was left in the world she had called home?

"I'm sorry," Sarah said at last, walking after her new little friend. "Zazzle, listen, I'm sorry. I just," another sigh punctuated her words, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Zazzle glanced over her shoulder. They had walked free from the vines and trees and were again in the turns and twists of the mostly brick maze. Up ahead the humming sounds became unnerving. It came from all around them. The little huntress fixed her narrowed eyes on a blooming yellow rose snaking up ivy along the walls, ahead a sea of those yellow flowers swayed ever so gently from side to side. The little cat hissed and backed against Sarah's legs. "Back up Sarah," she commanded.

"But what?" Sarah's mind swam in yellow and electrical currents.

"GO! NOW!" Zazzle darted between Sarah's legs, leaping in a sprint of escape. Sarah, surprised and feeling somewhat drugged, went to turn. In her movement a wave of vertigo slammed the side of her head and she reached out blindly to steady herself. Her hand met the cool, soft petals of the nearest rose.

"So…. Sleepy," she whispered, her eyes first drooping, giving way to exhaustion, and then closing. She slipped languidly to the ground, laying her head against the nearest wall as she succumbed to an inebriating slumber.

**The men had been** traversing the Labyrinth again for nearly an hour, or so it appeared by passage of the sun, when a flash of bright fur crossed their path. They had travelled in silence, since the collapse into the oubliette and subsequent upheaval of emotion. Now, however, Jareth called out in a low stentorian voice as he held Gideon back with an upheld arm. "Who are you!"

The creature slid to a stop. She fixed the two men in her sight and then blinked abruptly in response to Jareth. In one fluid movement it had arched its back, lifted the stubbed tail, pointed its ears and lifted its lips to show rows of tiny sharp teeth. A hiss filled the space between them. "Jareth….." the name was a growl.

The king scoffed. "Huntress, I'd thought you all dead."

"Nearly, no thanksssss to our king," She twitched the nub and bared her teeth again. "Unfortunately, I came in sssearch for you. We share a mutual friend who issss in danger."

"Sarah?" Her name spilled out of his mouth before he could think about possible consequences of showing his weakness so soon. The little cat eyed the king, twitching her long whiskers as her eyes narrowed again. This time, though, confusion poured over her, like water drenching a flame of rage. The king waited. Gideon watched, a bystander in the confrontation.

Zazzle sat, still occasionally flicking the bit of tail on the ground. She considered this man before her. The dictator of her home, who had been made into a horrorshow tyrant by her parents. His actions, especially those as of late, did nothing to diminish the infamous reputation that preceded him. She accepted his heavy hand in ruling their lands, his brash sentences of punishment and the disgusting slant of his career: stealing babies. What she did not understand was the naked fear that slipped out of his mouth with the girl's name or the gentleness that moved to the corners of his eyes and the way his hands grasped each other as he waited, anxious.

She waited a moment longer, weighing her decision carefully. "I will bring you to her, but first a question." She took several purposeful steps towards Jareth, hating him more and more with each step. Wondering again and again what it was about the girl that made him, this monster, something else. "Why haven't you told her?"

Gideon's interest was piqued. "Yes, Jareth. Even those left in the Labyrinth ask the same question."

Jareth tightened his hands into fists, digging half moons of his fingernails into the flesh of his palm. He shook, trying in vain to stow the anger that bubbled beneath his skin. "It is my decision to make."

"No! No! It is oursssss! She issss our only hope!" Zazzle hissed the words as she leapt to the feet of the king. Her eyes flashed and she was suddenly ten times her size. The voice that came out was a roar and Gideon took a step back.

"Illusions," Jareth chided, passing a hand across Zazzle's hair, ignoring the ferocious fangs that bore in response. In that moment Jareth turned away from them both, laid a hand upon his maze and then pressed his forehead against the brick and stone. A tumultuous shudder coursed through the ground in harmony with Jareth's rattling sigh.

"And I know. She does not deserve this. If I tell Sarah the truth, " Jareth sucked in air, tasting waste and dismay in the world around him. "If I tell her, she will feel compelled to stay here, curse herself, damn herself. Someone such as she does not belong here. If I could, in a moment, I would send her back to her world and her life, if she could be happy."

The clear longing, the tainted love, the hopeless loss in the Goblin King's words were too naked and heartfelt to be chalked up to more trickery on his behalf. Both Zazzle and Gideon swallowed down their contempt for the man beside them as startling realization stole through them both. They did not betray the clarity of the moment with more harsh and accusatory words. Instead, lowering her voice and sinking back into herself, Zazzle turned in the direction where she had left Sarah. "Come."

They covered the ground in half the time anticipated, given the urgency at their heels to find the girl who had been left alone to the wiles of the Labyrinth. However, the magic of that place was so near the end, that they met no resistance and Zazzle found Sarah where she had been left: Asleep near a bed of roses, peace on her pretty face.

Jareth strode forward first. He did not see the other two steps away, just past a corner. Somewhere a deep wonder had calmed their mutual dislike of the man who now bowed before a sleeping girl. They granted him respect in a land that would not have otherwise known the word. Jareth kneeled beside Sarah, noting the still pink of her cheek and rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. She was alive, and relief stole through him as his muscles trembled once.

"Sarah," he whispered, and gently looped a finger beneath a stray strand of chestnut hair and draped it behind her ear. She did not stir, did not move, even her breath remained the same. Jareth glanced up at the flowers, still vibrating, still humming, but so faint now that he nearly missed them when he had, instead, been so consumed by the sight of this woman. "Sarah," he said her name again, enjoying a rare moment when his defenses were down and no one could see.

His hand, damp with anticipation, stroked her cheek. Again she did not respond. "Zazzle," the king called out and the huntress appeared.

"Can you carry her? To the end of the Labyrinth. Perhaps out of this place the spell will be broken."

Zazzle nodded gravely, a trace of dislike still tainting her response. But first she whispered: "It won't, you know. Leaving this place will not wake her. You know as well as I that the sleeping sickness is broken only by…. A kiss, Goblin King."

Jareth tightened his jaw. "We will take her out of this place. You can at least do us that courtesy." The king then rose and walked several lengths from Zazzle, assessing the length of the passage and the yellow flowers. He then turned and, grimacing, bellowed again an unspeakable curse.

"Jareth!" Gideon spat out, silencing the man who raged beside him. "Do you wish to call Damien to our exact location? Perhaps he won't enter the Labyrinth again but out there is fair game!" Jareth, visibly shaken by the loss of control, strode to Sarah and easily lifted her into his arms. Zazzle had already shifted into the lion-cat being capable of bearing the weight of a human woman. Jareth draped the girl carefully atop his subject and then, a single goal in mind, sent them all on their way.

It was not yet dusk when they found the edge of the labyrinth and walked into open grasslands. Their horses were grazing, calm and content, as damselflies spun overhead. Jareth, hesitating a moment just at the edge of the border of the Labyrinth, let his eyes follow the hovel of the dump and then peaks of the roofs in the Goblin city, and at last the great castle itself. It stood ominous and foreboding, like the final warning to his opponents in the Underground. The sheer power made him shudder. The memory of his fall was sharp, like acid in his mouth. The old injuries sent phantom pains that made him move again.

Gideon had already gathered the horses and was helping to unburden Zazzle. He had rested Sarah in a thatch of clover. A surge of jealousy interrupted Jareth's reveries and he came upon the small group in a sour mood. "Leave us." His eyes locked on Zazzle, who bristled beneath his disdain.

"Or rather, we thank you! We are in your debt, kind friend," Gideon interjected, his purple eyes hopeful that Zazzle would accept his heartfelt sentiment and ignore Jareth's unyielding disregard for goodwill. Zazzle nodded graciously toward Gideon, but did not leave. She tarried beside Sarah, rubbing against the girl's arm and bidding her a silent farewell.

"You lossst the magic long ago, Jareth. Sssuch was your father'sssss cursssse. We are not idiots, not like your Goblinssss," Zazzle's expression shifted, something like sympathy and also disgust. "The crystal bought you time. Ssssshe was chosssen…. When you lossst. You know, I know, he knowsss," she gestured towards Gideon.

Gideon shook his head. "Come, Jareth, let's find camp."

Zazzle remained, judging the Goblin King's reaction. For a long while they stood, stalemated beneath the waning sun. At length Zazzle conceded and circled back in her tracks. Her tiny form disappeared into lengthening shadows that consumed the once great and terrible maze as the sun set.

"It did not work," Jareth said at last, once Zazzle had gone and the three were alone. He looked at Sarah out of instinct, and still she slept without motion or response. "I cannot do it."

Gideon, exhausted after the unnerving trip through the Labyrinth, had no more encouragement to give. His words lay frozen, and so he clucked to the horses and led them toward a copse of trees just ahead, for shelter. Jareth was left, with his thoughts and Sarah.

_**I'll lay my **__love between the stars._

_As the pain sweeps through makes no sense for you…._

_A dream. The words making themselves whole in his silvery and seductive voice before he knows what he's saying. A girl. A girl in make-believe dressed up in clothes that make her look like princess. A ballroom. A place transcending time and reality all lit up with a hundred candles and floating bubbles that break like dreams._

_But I'll be there for you, as the world falls down._

_Falling…falling… falling in love._

_A touch. His hand meets her slim waist and he imagines the silk of her ball gown would be warmed by her skin, if he could touch it without his gloves. A look. Their eyes meet when his mask has been lowered and he feels more naked to her than he ever has before. A promise. He cannot speak these things to her in any other place. He cannot make the words so true and honest as they are then in that ballroom, in a drugged dance with other dark dancers at the ball._

_It's gone. Falling… falling…._

**Jareth was startled awake** and he realized that he had been dreaming. The fire that Gideon had made before returning to Jareth and Sarah and helping move the woman to the camp, had died away. It was a bed of embers and ash, a faint orange glow reminiscent of flame. He didn't know how long he had slept, but it was full night and the sky a deep black as the moon had fallen past the horizon. Or perhaps there had been no moon. "I'll lay my love between the stars," he whispered as he looked at the heavens and replayed the words from the Huntress and Gideon both. It was a bitter truth.

Sarah was sleeping still. He reached out and touched her and for one heartbreaking moment he thought she stirred. But her eyes remained closed and her face motionless in the night.

He rolled on his side and stared at her. The night hid his many years and even more mistakes. The dark hid the gazes and glares of his companions. The night washed clean so many little lies and grievous sins that made up his life. The stars were mute above and they did not whisper accusations and look at him as though he had killed and bloodied child after child after child. They knew, as he does, that he was a prisoner. Albeit a prisoner of his own making.

He came closer to Sarah, smelling something sweet in her hair. His hand swept across her cheek, toucing her arm again and then, as he held his breath, his fingers twined together with hers. Zazzle's words returned in time with the thrumming of his heart. Jareth, more than anyone, knew the secret behind the rose garden. Beautiful and deadly, they kept his contenders away from the other exits in the Labyrinth. Should they pass through, despite the warning, there they lie for all time.

He also knew, looking upon the pale loveliness of Sarah asleep, that there was only one thing to wake her. That, while this most certainly was not a Sleeping Beauty fairytale, there was something of truth in those stories. Cold fear filled him deep inside at the thought. A kiss, a true love kiss. If he knew, if he truly knew that there was love between them how could he then send Sarah home? Or if he should fail and she slept on despite his lips upon hers, he would know an ultimate loss from which there would be no escape.

"Sarah," he whispered, his hand now on her forehead, which was cool and dry. His face hovered over hers and he could almost taste her breath.

Only the moonless night was witness as the king pressed his lips to the soft fullness of the girl's mouth. The sky above in its dark oblivion kept another secret as Jareth slipped back from her, visibly shaken. A handful of moments passed, like petals off a daisy, as Jareth laid in wait.

And only the Underground's deepest night heard the sharp intake of breath as Sarah's eyes opened to look around, she sat upright and stared wonderingly at a sleeping Goblin King.


End file.
